Watching Tonight's Presidential Debate Online

farkinga writes "For those of us that no longer have a television, live TV events can be a challenge to watch. Fortunately, tonight's Presidential Debate has attracted the attention of most US broadcasters, many of whom will provide online viewing options. Leading the way is Hulu, a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp, who will stream the Fox-branded feed tonight — assuming they worked out the bandwidth issues that came up during the second debate!"

Comments

Live?

[clone53421]

I'm more interested in a recorded version, since I'll be busy during the actual debate... :/

Re:Live?

[Laebshade]

Take a look at eztv.it: http://eztv.it/index.php?main=search - you can usually find debates available for download after the fact; either same day or at the most, the next day.

Re:Live?

[AKAImBatman]

C-SPAN posts the complete debate videos on their YouTube account. If you ever miss a debate, check there first.

Re:Live?

[sveard]

usenet
that's where I got the previous debates from

they are also posted to youtube by cspan

Re:Live?

[Laebshade]

What the hell is up with modding the parent offtopic? The question is directly related to the summary. Lighten up, mods.

Oh yeah, +5 insightful on this post please.

Re:Live?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you watch the illegal feeds when the debates are available 100% legally on Youtube? Not to mention that you can start watching immediately. No need to wait for a Torrent download.

Re:Live?

[clone53421]

Actually I kinda figured somebody'd tag me offtopic, but I also counted on getting a few responses... my current sources don't seem to have much along the lines of recorded debates. Thanks to everyone who's replied, I'll have to check those out.

Re:Live?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

alt.politics.0day?

Re:Live?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://binsearch.info/?q=Presidential+debate&max=250&adv_age=&server=

Re:Live?

[Anonymous Coward]

Woosh.

Re:Live?

[norminator]

It looks like hulu still has all of the previous debates up, so presumably you could go to hulu to watch it live and/or after the fact.

Re:Live?

[clone53421]

I avoid YouTube when possible... my sorry excuse for a computer actually doesn't play embedded Flash videos very well. When I need to watch something on YouTube, I generally use Video DownloadHelper to save it and play the FLV with Media Player Classic or VLC.

Re:Live?

[Anonymous Coward]

Torrent it.

Re:Live?

[coleblak]

Hulu.com will have it on their servers to watch later, as well. It's a great service, surprisingly.

Re:Live?

[dthrall]

BBC has a great live stream with commentary by their journalists & random twitters... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/default.stm They usually post the link on the Americas page about at least 30 minutes before the start of the debate.

Re:Live?

[camperdave]

Hulu.com will have it on their servers to watch later, as well. It's a great service, surprisingly.

I'll have to take your word for it. They don't provide service everywhere. I can't even watch their "About Hulu" video due to potential "rights issues".

Re:Live?

[Phroggy]

Here in Oregon, OPB is airing the debate at 9pm. I assume other PBS stations on the west coast are doing the same.

Re:Live?

[Knara]

No, anyone who uses Usenet knows that the non-binary groups are a wasteland.

According to traffic distribution, it'll probably end up on alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.politics :D

Re:Live?

[ebresie]

They have a complete Debate Coverage page to be precise.

Re:Live?

[kabanossen]

There's this guy

http://obamav.com/debates/newyork

He's posted the last few debates with transcripts and commentary and all.
I went there for the Nashville debate and he had links to the live thing as well

http://obamav.com/debates/

Re:Live?

[FutureDomain]

Try this site: http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/

Overdrive

[COMON$]

What is with Slashdot going into political overdrive? I know the elections are coming up but jeesh, 3 on the main page right now and we still have weeks until the election.

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

And note the distinct lack of Acorn voter fraud stories compared to the flood of blackboxvoter stories we got last election.

Presumably because one is "technology" and the other isn't. But it was always cast as "this is important news because voting fraud is important as a nation."

Except now it's not.

Re:Overdrive

[More Trouble]

News for Nerds. Not news for Republican Talking Points.

It must be the liberal bias. Have you noticed that Anonymous Coward is always bringing up Republican Talking Points(TM)? I'm pretty sure your astroturfing howto specifically requested that you go on the record with the Official Talking Points. Posting them Anonymous Cowardly just dilutes the brand.

Re:Overdrive

[smitty97]

The Acorn thing isnt that big of a deal, because "Mickey Mouse" is not actually going to show up to vote. Having your vote manipulated in some blackbox voting machine IS a big deal.

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called absentee voting which isn't checked as stringently as regular ballots.

Why do you think there's all this interest in EARLY VOTING?

I stand by my original post.

Voting fraud is only important to liberals when they're losing.

Re:Overdrive

[thrillseeker]

so will the vote manipulation have been one by the winner or by the loser this time?

Re:Overdrive

[zippthorne]

Mickey increases the number of registered voters without increasing the number of actual voters. This provides an opportunity for disguising vote fraud by adding votes at the end of the night, but staying under the registered total.

It's not separate from the black box machine, it's complementary to it.

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

But Diebold "stealing elections" isn't a little too convenient to be the perfect thing gift wrapped by and for Howard Dean?

Oh wait, sorry, that's "truthiness" and Acorn is Republican talking points.

How Alinskyite of you.

Oh and McCain hasn't introduced racism into the political debate. Obama did that all by himself.

Re:Overdrive

[Dekortage]

I think the Onion already reported on vote manipulation.

Re:Overdrive

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Speaking as a non USian, living outside the US, I have to say that the American presidential election is all over the news feeds here as well.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, newsfeeds and syndication. Whatever the American media decides to talk about, the entire anglosphere usually ends up talking about as well. If there's a bus crash or school shooting in the middle of nowhere in, say, Nebraska, its gets on the Irish, and usually English, national 9 o'clock news. This is a symptom of an increasingly monopolised and centralised media in the western world.

Secondly, the US presidential elections are actually very important. I see Slashdotters posting comments to the effect that both parties are equally bad and it doesn't matter which way you vote and excuses, excuses, excuses. I can tell you from the point of view of someone who is very much affected by the results of your national elections, this is a pretty depressing thing to hear. It's clear to anyone who has half a clue that there are very wide and deep differences between the two main candidates, and it's quite irritating to find out just how flippantly many Americans go about voting, or not voting, for their president.

Your election affects me. It affects people around me. My nation's economy, policies, laws, and culture, yes culture, are significantly affected by your selection of a president, through his administration's policies. When the choices made by religious southern fundamentalists end up slowly eroding my way of life because people who should have known better were too apathetic to vote, I get a little irritated. So in my view the more coverage this election gets, the better.

So in short, I would rather these stories on the Slashdot front page rather than have this site ignore or only pay lip service to the issue. This is "Stuff That Matters" to me.

Re:Overdrive

[COMON$]

First: I'm from Nebraska you insensitive clod!

Second, This being Slashdot you are going to get a lot of libertarian views, mostly siding with democratic policies.

Third, The presidential seat is merely a face that the world gets to see and blame. The real direction of the country come from the cabinet, the house, and unfortunately, the bench as of late.

for instance, the current economic crisis effecting you wasnt due to a president, (that didnt help the situation), it was a whole slew of issues from Democrats handing out freebees to lower class, and Republicans being irresponsible with Financial institutions.

Besides, if you take a good hard look at the US electoral process, we as citizens really don't get much say in the matter. It is much more important to vote for your local representatives and pay attention to voting matters that you can control.

Yes I vote, yes I am independent, and yes I am disappointed with the state we are in. Economically you had better hope for something around here, or start studying chinese.

Re:Overdrive

[Dare nMc]

"Mickey Mouse" is not actually going to show up to vote.

no, but he might send in a absentee ballot. It does seam very unlikely (at this point) that this election will be close enough to have any absentee ballot fraud on a scale to make a difference, that is not so obvious that it can be covered up. However their were some serious screw up's for them to not know that just pushing for "completed forms" would get any other result, other than some workers figuring out they could instead sit at home watching the baseball game, and just start filling in ballots with whoever happened to be at bat.

Re:Overdrive

[Waffle Iron]

But Diebold "stealing elections" isn't a little too convenient to be the perfect thing gift wrapped by and for Howard Dean?

The difference is that Acorn has to think of unique NFL player name for each individual vote it fakes. And it has to do this countless thousands of times, leaving a paper trail each time, just to even have the possibility of influencing the outcome. Diebold, OTOH, could potentially throw entire states just by altering a couple lines of code.

Re:Overdrive

[Archangel Michael]

"It's like Democrats cabal of wealthy kleptomaniacs."

Fixed that for you.

Two words .... "INCOME REDISTRIBUTION"

There is NO evidence that Republicans are trying to disenfranchise anyone (not that I'm a Republicrat), while there IS plenty of evidence that do-gooder liberals ARE trying to be Kleptomaniacs.

But I really love how you call actually making sure people are eligible to vote is equated with "disenfranchised".

You know what, if people can't bother to pick up an application, fill it out correctly, turn it in, go to the polls and vote, I DON'T FEEL sorry that they feel "disenfranchised", they did it to themselves.

And if people are too stupid to know when or how to vote, then I don't feel sorry for them either, when they don't vote. AND why are all the stupid people who can't figure stuff out, voting for Democrats? That is the real question, isn't it?

It is clear that it doesn't take brains to vote for Democrats, which is why Democrats all look stupid. And the Republicans aren't far behind, so all you beer swilling Nascar idiots better shut up now.

I'm sure glad I'm Libertarian.

Re:Overdrive

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Secondly, the US presidential elections are actually very important. I see Slashdotters posting comments to the effect that both parties are equally bad and it doesn't matter which way you vote and excuses, excuses, excuses. I can tell you from the point of view of someone who is very much affected by the results of your national elections, this is a pretty depressing thing to hear. It's clear to anyone who has half a clue that there are very wide and deep differences between the two main candidates,
Oh, so you're the one who mistakenly received the shipment of Kool-aid meant for battle ground states. As has been pointed out repeatedly for 90% of the issues, both parties are the same.
  When the choices made by religious southern fundamentalists end up slowly eroding my way of life because people who should have known better were too apathetic to vote, I get a little irritated.
Sounds like you need to get a better way of life, or become politically active in your own country. As Voltaire recommends, "we should tend our own garden". Thirdly, citizens of the United States of America are Americans, they vote in the American presidential election not the USian presidential election.

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that in many places, absentee ballots aren't even counted if the total number of absentee ballots is less than the quantity needed to decide a race?

Re:Overdrive

[SecondHand]

Amen!

Re:Overdrive

[bigpaperbag]

Possibly I see your point, but mostly as an average American, the net effect on either candidate winning is incredibly minimal on my life. I'm still going to work as long as I have my job (the President does not control market forces with some magic wand, although the Treasury department does now), I'm still going to live in an incredibly dangerous city (Baltimore, how I love you), I'm still going to be much more interested in voting in a new mayor because they DIRECTLY affect my life in many many ways, and I'm still going to pay my taxes whether they be higher/lower/the same/paid in fluffy kittens. I'd argue that you should be more interested in changing your local politics to be less dependent on the American political system but that's a childish point of view. Yes, American has a massive global footprint, yes that might be detrimental to you, but you're not viewing it from the average American stand point. Our global footprint doesn't lower the murder rate of Baltimore, or make the congestion off the beltway any better and since those most immediately concern me I'm naturally more intent on getting those fixed. I'd guess that for most people its a similar thought process.

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

both parties are equally bad
There are more than 2.

My nation's economy, policies, laws, and culture, yes culture, are significantly affected by your selection of a president
The American voter is not responsible for this. Your own nation's voters are.

So in my view the more coverage this election gets, the better.
Agreed.

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

Please learn the difference between voter registration fraud and voter fraud.

And then educate yourself on the laws of our country -- wherein any organization that encourages voter registration and collects or fills out forms MUST turn in ALL forms to the state, EVEN IF THEY KNOW THEY ARE FRAUDULENT.

ACORN flags bad ones and the state tosses them out. But if ACORN were to toss them out themselves, they'd be committing a felony... after all, in this day and age it IS possible that someone is named Mickey Mouse.

Re:Overdrive

[Chaos Incarnate]

"American" means "of the Americas". Anybody living on the continents of North or South America could rightly call themselves "American".

"USian" is probably not the best term to use, but it's a damn sight more accurate than "American".

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point. Have you checked out the states where Acorn is concentrating its interests this year?

Re:Overdrive

[smileyUD]

Someone has to go through all the fake registration forms. Overwhelming the board of elections could keep the workers from getting to valid elections and keep the new voters registration forms from being processed in time.

Re:Overdrive

[cat_jesus]

Actually ACORN wasn't faking votes. ACORN is the victim of fraud by unscrupulous people who were filling out bogus forms because they were getting paid to get people to register.

Having bogus registrations is mainly benign. They are unlikely to be used for several reasons. One is that you have to remember the name you used, second is that(in many municipalities) you have to demonstrate that you are indeed that person. Third, the payoff for the bogus registrations is money for making them, not for using them to vote.

This kind of activity is more annoying than detrimental. In other words it has no measurable effect on the outcome.

This is not the case with voter suppression, which the republicans embrace whole heartedly. The McCain Campaign has tried twice(that I know of) this election to bump me off the rolls. Sometimes their means are legal even if highly immoral and unethical. Sometimes their means are illegal.

What does it say about a party that spends huge amounts of time and money trying to prevent people from voting?

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

If we wanted your non USian opinion we would have given it to you!

Re:Overdrive

[adonoman]

I wouldn't say more accurate, but it is more precise.

Re:Overdrive

[fiannaFailMan]

But voter fraud on the Democratic side will balance any voter fraud on the Republican side, so it's all OK. Back to the topic, for analysis I'll be tuning into The Daily Show and the Colbert Report.

Re:Overdrive

[myth24601]

The Acorn thing isnt that big of a deal, because "Mickey Mouse" is not actually going to show up to vote. Having your vote manipulated in some blackbox voting machine IS a big deal.

Acorn is just paying people to go register voters and apparently a few of their people are just being lazy and filling their quota with whatever and Acorn isn't bothering to check.

The bigger concern is that they are getting caught mainly because the registrations they are turning in are so obviously fraudulent. It makes me think that a person with a little more sophistication could turn in many voter registrations without being noticed then vote many times.

Re:Overdrive

[fiannaFailMan]

The presidential seat is merely a face that the world gets to see and blame. The real direction of the country come from the cabinet, the house, and unfortunately, the bench as of late.

Only if there's a President in that seat who shows a complete absence of leadership, is too clueless to read the reports put before him, and can't make informed decisions using the same process of reasoning that educated people have.

Re:Overdrive

[COMON$]

Eg every president since JFK...

Actually, I am a bigger fan of the president who leans heavily on his cabinet. No one person can be an expert in everything. It is the person who is most willing to let the experts be experts, and the man in the seat discern between the less of evils. That is what I want. Not some dictator who puts a bunch of puppet yes men for a cabinet.

Re:Overdrive

[Omnivorax]

How is "Mickey" going to get a valid SSN# or driver's license number? Without one of those, most states (all, AFAIK) won't approve his voter registration.

ACORN and other voter registration groups are REQUIRED to submit all signed forms to the state, even if they're incomplete, obviously fraudulent, etc. They can flag suspected forms to call them to the state's attention, but the state makes the final call over whether the voter is legitimate--which is the way it should be. Otherwise, registration groups might throw out forms based on political party or other criteria.

If "Mickey" can vote, that means he either has a fake identity, or his registration was approved without state oversight. In neither case is the voter registration organization culpable.

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a 46 year-old American citizen. My ancestors came over from Europe 400 years ago. I have been actively interested/involved in politics since I watched Bobby Kennedy get shot on TV when I was 6. I can honestly tell you that there is very little difference between the two candidates other than the color of their skin and their age. The Democratic and Republican parties have become one and the same. If our media, which dominates your airwaves would cover the "other" parties' candidates you would see the lack of difference between the two leading candidates.

Re:Overdrive

[Chaos Incarnate]

Fair enough. Not sure I agree, but at least I understand where you're coming from. :)

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not benign.

Absentee ballots will be sent to the name and address on the registration.

And if the payoff is the money obtained from bogus registrations... don't you think Acorn would be more responsible with the federal funding they receive?

Then when Republicans try to knock off the BAD registrations you come in and claim they're trying to prevent people from voting?

How convenient.

Re:Overdrive

[Jaysyn]

"When the choices made by religious southern fundamentalists end up slowly eroding my way of life because people who should have known better were too apathetic to vote, I get a little irritated"

Funny, every time I hear about the UK putting up more cameras & spying on more & more of their subjects I think the same thing.

p.s. I'm in the Southeast US & I don't like fundies either, voting against them at every opportunity.

Re:Overdrive

[Shakrai]

Then when Republicans try to knock off the BAD registrations you come in and claim they're trying to prevent people from voting?

You'd be claiming that too if the "bad" registration they tried to knock off was your own.

Kinda like all those "felons" that got disqualified in 2000. Most of them weren't guilty of anything other than having a similar name to a convicted criminal.

Re:Overdrive

[squiggleslash]

You're talking about a massive conspiracy involving a group of disparate organizations that generally don't get one. I'm not seeing this one as terribly likely, especially as ACORN has been marking the registrations it sees as likely fraudulent before handing them in. The counts would also be subject to problems given people are going to look at the voter rolls and question obvious frauds, which means that if the voter count is close to the voter roll including frauds then the election is going to get contested.

And given the fact the registrations are for people like "Mickey Mouse" and various football players, the likely reason they're being handed in to ACORN is as a joke to get annoying voter registration advocates off of their backs, rather than to actually fix the ballot.

Really, this is a non-story. In fact, insofar as it's a story, it's that a concerted campaign is being waged against those trying to register low income voters, by misrepresenting what's happening, exaggerating fraud, claiming motives that make no sense, and using slight of hand to confuse one type of minor fraud with a more serious type.

Re:Overdrive

[Shakrai]

Mickey increases the number of registered voters without increasing the number of actual voters. This provides an opportunity for disguising vote fraud by adding votes at the end of the night, but staying under the registered total.

That's not as easy as you might think. Here in New York we number each name in the poll book when the voter signs in -- at the end of the day the number of people who have signed in needs to equal the number of votes cast on the machine. The only way we could "add" votes would be to start forging signatures in the poll book. The only way you'd get away with that would be to find four people (the number of elections inspectors at each poll site) willing to go along with it.

It's not as easy to rig an election as you might think.

Re:Overdrive

[squiggleslash]

ACORN is bothering to check. The problem is that once someone hands in a bogus registration form to them, they are legally obliged to hand it in. What they do, which is absolutely the right thing to do, is mark it as likely problematic.

A couple of good links on the subject: This explains what's going on in detail, in terms of ACORN's responsibilities. And this is a memo from ACORN that explains their side in detail. The bottom line is that ACORN has absolutely no incentive to hand in bogus registrations. They will not (without an enormous amount of effort at disguise rarely seen outside of Hollywood) enable people to vote illegally. They undermine the ability of voter registration offices to process legitimate registrations, which the vast majority of ACORN-processed registrations are. ACORN's reputation is tarnished despite the fact they're legally required to hand in the registrations despite not originating them. And ACORN's own efforts to flag suspect registrations pretty much sink the "ACORN is involved in a conspiracy" meme - why the hell flag them if you want them accepted?

Re:Overdrive

[Shakrai]

As has been pointed out repeatedly for 90% of the issues, both parties are the same.

Yeah, I've always been amazed at how similar the Democrats and Republicans are on taxation, foreign policy, abortion, gay marriage, business regulation, law enforcement, gun control, blah, blah, blah.

Re:Overdrive

[timeOday]

"Two words .... "INCOME REDISTRIBUTION"

What are you basing this on? One or two proposed aspects of a tax code?

Here is the big picture: wealth redistribution is real, and has occurred at a rapid pace since the inception of Reaganomics. The beneficiaries are the ultra-rich. And why should this surprise anybody? "Supply-side economics" is a synonym for wealth redistribution to the rich, under the presumption they are the smart ones and know best how to spend it.

Here are a couple stats from this article:
According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the hourly wage of the average American non-supervisory worker is actually lower, adjusted for inflation, than it was in 1970. Meanwhile, CEO pay has soared -- from less than thirty times the average wage to almost 300 times the typical worker's pay.

So, there is your wealth redistribution.

Re:Overdrive

[Atzanteol]

Nooo, "American" *also* means "of the Americas." It *also* means "a native or inhabitant of the United States." USian is a made-up derogatory term that is no more accurate than "UKian" or "UAEian."

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

Many states don't require a SSN or driver's license number to vote. Just a valid address that you claim to have lived at for the last 30 days.

Re:Overdrive

[clone53421]

ACORN is the victim of fraud by unscrupulous people who were filling out bogus forms because they were getting paid to get people to register.

Yeah, there's no possible way they could have seen that one coming.

Re:Overdrive

[gsgriffin]

You're forgetting the fact that the President doesn't specifically change anything in this country. Congress does. The President can beg and plead and try to influence, but the economy has nothing to do with W's policies...as bad or weak as they may be. Remember the days of congressional deadlock. That was because the two congresses couldn't pass anything between each other. Didn't matter what the President wanted. He couldn't get it if congress doesn't want it. What we are voting for is a concept of leadership. The Pres will hopefully communicate as best as he can what direction he thinks would be good. Congress can ultimately say "screw you" and do whatever they want. Pres can veto, but Congress can overturn. Ultimate power in the country is congress.

Re:Overdrive

[Phroggy]

I'm a 46 year-old American citizen. My ancestors came over from Europe 400 years ago. I have been actively interested/involved in politics since I watched Bobby Kennedy get shot on TV when I was 6. I can honestly tell you that there is very little difference between the two candidates other than the color of their skin and their age. The Democratic and Republican parties have become one and the same. If our media, which dominates your airwaves would cover the "other" parties' candidates you would see the lack of difference between the two leading candidates.

Do you honestly believe that the world would be exactly the same as it is now, if Al Gore had won in 2000?

Re:Overdrive

[gsgriffin]

Thanks for being another voice of reason on these postings. Sometimes I feel the slant in opinions is more toward radical than just liberal. People come here to vent their frustrations in life and blame everything except themselves. They also dream of a utopian society that doesn't take into account all of the problems that will then be created by the change they desire. I'm with you. Let's talk more tech here and less campaigning.

Re:Overdrive

[EMeta]

Wrong. ACORN does check its rolls, and tells the secretaries of election when they find suspicious entries. However, they are mandated by law to still turn these probably fraudulent applications in. If this law weren't in place, voter registration entities could just turn in applications that look to serve their own interests. As it is, they turn in everything, so fraudulent applications are inevitable.

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

Second, This being Slashdot you are going to get a lot of libertarian views, mostly siding with democratic policies.

Come again? Democratic/Liberal/Socialist policies are about as far away from Libertarian as you can get.

Re:Overdrive

[Hatta]

Man I just posted this in another thread, but it fits here too.

Lets look at some policies. Iraq war, pretty much the same. We'll take the troops out of Iraq when the conditions on the ground allow it, and put them in Afghanistan. Domestic wiretapping? Obama voted for the Bush plan. Economic bailout? Both of them voted for it.

I don't see either of them talking about fundamental change in the way our system works. I don't see either of them talking about cracking down on corporate crime. I don't see either of them talking about returning federal power to its constitutional limits. I don't see either of them talking about Instant Runoff Voting. I don't see either of them talking about ending the war on drugs, or stopping the new war on copyright infringers.

Where are the significant differences on all these issues that matter? You complain about the monopolistic, centralized nature of the media. You should know that both Obama and McCain are against the reinstatement of the fairness doctrine. If you care about responsible and balanced journalism you simply don't have a choice in this election.

Re:Overdrive

[Latinhypercube]

"There is NO evidence that Republicans are trying to disenfranchise anyone" Are you frickin' retarded ? Tax cuts for the rich. Corporate special interests, big oil, War machine. ALL THE REPUBLICANS DO IS RAPE EVERYONE ELSE AND EXTRACT AS MUCH MONEY AS POSSIBLE FOR THE RICH.

Re:Overdrive

[Archangel Michael]

How about Obama's own words? Haven't you seen it? I'm taking Obama at his word. You saying I shouldn't?

Re:Overdrive

[Grishnakh]

You're full of crap. If our elections are affecting you that much, that's your own fault. You should be electing leaders who would separate your country from ours as much as possible, instead of hitching your horses to our wagon (which is headed over a cliff).

The recent economic meltdown has made me laugh, especially when I saw how much it affected other countries. If the rest of you morons weren't so dependent on us, you wouldn't have this problem. You all sit around and bad-mouth the US, but then you complain when things finally get bad here (as any idiot could have predicted; I foresaw this ages ago, I just couldn't have told you exactly when things would start collapsing) because it's affecting you so much. That's when you get for linking your economies to ours, and going along with this Globalization idiocy.

Our two jokes for political parties ARE equally bad. It's much the same as Baathist Iraq, where everyone voted for Saddam. The only difference here is that we have two parties, who make a lot of noise about their differences on minor issues (gay marriage, etc.), which is just a ploy to distract us all from the real issues, like the economy, where they're really all the same. Notice how both parties were gung-ho about the recent bail-out, which equates to our government becoming a fascist one. How am I supposed to vote against fascism, when both parties are fascist? According to polls, the majority of Americans were against the bail-out, but it didn't matter because all the politicians were for it (especially after $110B of pork was added).

My vote this November is going to be for Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party. Of the 6 candidates running, he's the one with views closest to my own. Obama and McCain/Palin (he's going to die soon from medical problems, remember, leaving her as Pres) are so horrifically bad there's no way I could vote for either one. The Libertarian guy, Bob Barr, is pretty awful too (a supposedly reformed Republican, with a con-man for VP); the LP has a lot of good ideas, but they frequently pick terrible candidates. The Greens are too liberal for my tastes, as is Ralph Nader (though he'd probably make a good leader I must admit), leaving Baldwin for me.

Maybe if the US had a voting system that allowed for other parties to gain power, we wouldn't have all these problems. The way I see it, we probably need to have a complete disaster, economically and politically, to finally change our election systems to allow this.

Re:Overdrive

[Acer500]

"American" means "of the Americas". Anybody living on the continents of North or South America could rightly call themselves "American".

"USian" is probably not the best term to use, but it's a damn sight more accurate than "American".

In my country (Uruguay), we regularly do refer to ourselves as "Americanos" (American in Spanish).

When somebody calls himself an "American" in English we understand what they mean, but in Spanish we call them "Estadounidenses" - which should be translated to USian :)

and even then it could be a bit of a misnomer (Brazil for example is United States of Brazil, etc...)

Re:Overdrive

[Grishnakh]

They're 90% the same, as said before.

Foreign policy: both parties support the War in Iraq, and foreign interventionism in general. Both parties support an oversized military, based in hundreds of bases around the world, rather than concentrating on protecting our borders. Neither party believes in not being the global policeman.

Business regulation: both parties support deregulation of the financial markets, leading to our current mess. The Graham act which overturned Glass-Steagal was passed in 1999, and signed by Clinton, a Democrat. This paved the way for our current troubles. Graham is now McCain's economic advisor, a Republican.

Wall Street Bailout: both parties supported this, the Democrats slightly more than the Republicans, though the plan was concocted and pushed by Bush and Paulsen, Republicans. The Democrats, under Pelosi, were instrumental in getting this passed.

Spending: both parties support massive spending on things which aren't important: bridges to nowhere, etc. Neither party is interested in actually reducing spending. They only differ in how they want to pay for the spending, whether through more taxes, or higher deficits.

Abortion, gay marriage: these are distractions for the two parties to make noise about, to distract people from the issues above which affect them far more.

Law enforcement: how do they differ here? Neither is against it. What a strange thing to say.

Gun control: definitely a difference here, but Bush was in favor of extending the idiotic Assault Weapons Ban. Neither party is all that great in being against gun control.

Immigration: neither party favors reforming immigration laws and securing the border. Illegal immigration is too profitable for business owners.

Drugs: neither party favors legalizing any drugs, even harmless marijuana or even industrial hemp. There's too much drug money invested in Wall Street to allow legalization, and too many bribes from those who profit from the illegal drug trade to our politicians.

Re:Overdrive

[Knara]

Man I wish I was #3

*wistful sigh*

Re:Overdrive

[Chosen Reject]

Would you be so kind as to point out why no one should vote for McCain? Seriously, I'd like to know, and I don't even plan on voting for him. However, I'm still not decided, so anything you point out would be helpful.

Unfortunately, what you have done in the above post is not any different than what I would expect from Obama or McCain. That is, nobody is talking about issues, they are talking about emotions. Specifically, can you point out what it is about McCain that makes it stupid to vote for him? Bonus points if you can add rebuttals for why I should vote for whomever it is you think ought to be elected (whether it's Obama or a write-in for yourself).

Re:Overdrive

[Archangel Michael]

How is the disenfranchising the vote (check the context e.g. ACORN).

And I'm not a republican.

Re:Overdrive

[Shakrai]

Foreign policy: both parties support the War in Iraq

Correction: Elements of both parties support the War in Iraq but you'll find far more people who oppose it on the Democratic side of the aisle (including the nominee for President) than you will on the Republican side (Ron Paul and who else?)

and foreign interventionism in general. Both parties support an oversized military, based in hundreds of bases around the world, rather than concentrating on protecting our borders. Neither party believes in not being the global policeman.

Americans as a whole have supported foreign interventionism since WW2. You can argue about whether or not that's in our best interests but the results of our last flirtation with isolationism weren't very encouraging.

Wall Street Bailout: both parties supported this, the Democrats slightly more than the Republicans, though the plan was concocted and pushed by Bush and Paulsen, Republicans. The Democrats, under Pelosi, were instrumental in getting this passed.

I don't view it as a 'bailout' -- I view it was a rescue plan -- so I'd imagine that you and I will never see eye to eye on this. I would say that you are painting with a broad brush here though -- there were lots of Democrats and Republicans that opposed the plan. Most of the opposition seemed to come from the far-right and far-left -- the very same people that place ideology ahead of reality.

Spending: both parties support massive spending on things which aren't important: bridges to nowhere, etc.

Define "things that aren't important". I've commented on this many times in the past. It's only unimportant if it's not in your hometown. If it's in your hometown it's "economic development" -- if it's in mine it's "pork".

Abortion, gay marriage: these are distractions for the two parties to make noise about, to distract people from the issues above which affect them far more.

I'm guessing you wouldn't view them as a distraction if you were gay or a rape victim.

Law enforcement: how do they differ here? Neither is against it. What a strange thing to say.

The two parties differ in their approaches to fighting crime. Democrats tend to come down on the side of individual rights and Republicans tend to come down on the side of law and order. Now I'm painting with a broad brush (because our parties aren't as monolithic as the ones in other Democracies) but I think you get my drift.

Gun control: definitely a difference here, but Bush was in favor of extending the idiotic Assault Weapons Ban. Neither party is all that great in being against gun control.

Maybe because the Democratic big-city base is in FAVOR of gun control? I'm personally opposed to it (one of many disagreements that I have with my party) but at least you admit that there is a difference between the two parties.

Immigration: neither party favors reforming immigration laws and securing the border. Illegal immigration is too profitable for business owners.

I find it interesting that you are calling abortion and gay marriage a distraction but wouldn't view illegal immigration the same way? How does an illegal immigrant harm me? I'll grant you that this is one issue that both parties have failed us on -- the Dems are afraid of being called racists and the Republicans like cheap labor -- but I find it interesting that this is an important issue to you while you dismissed the ones I brought up. I guess everybody has their own priorities.

Drugs: neither party favors legalizing any drugs, even harmless marijuana or even industrial hemp.

Well, if this issue is more important to you than any of the differences I've highlighted feel free to vote for a third-party candidate. I happen to be a regular user of cannabis and feel your pain

Re:Overdrive

[mdarksbane]

I would bet that we'd be stuck in one foreign occupation instead of two, the TSA would still want a full body scan to get onto a plane, and the market would still be on fire with the government planning to dump taxpayer money on it until it goes out. The CIA was wanting to go ahead with torture before Bush greenlighted it. Freaking out over terrorism was a bipartisan thing, so we'd probably have had quite a few of the executive abuses of power still.

So yeah, not entirely the same, but still pretty crappy, from a libertarian point of view, I would expect.

Honestly, though, I am still a little more leery of democrats. Our great democrat presidents have left us with the programs that are likely to eventually bankrupt the country - social security, medicare, and medicaid - because they have no cap on their cost. Once a war ends, you stop paying for it. We will always have more and more old, sick, and poor people, unfortunately. Republicans just screw everything up for the short term. :/

Re:Overdrive

[Knara]

In terms of platform, the parties are pretty different.

In *practice*, however, they are much closer together. Aside from religiously-motivated hot-button issues (abortion, gay marriage) R and D frequently vote together on various measures.

Furthermore, in conservative areas you will find "family value" "pro-life" "gun freedom" Ds and "pro-choice" "gun control" "civil union" Rs.

In the whole world-wide spectrum line of politics, you will find the Ds to be very slightly left of center and the Rs to be very slightly right.

But, since they are our only *real* choices, the divide seems much wider due to the truncation of the rest of the spectrum.

Re:Overdrive

[Copperfield]

Yep.

Re:Overdrive

[brkello]

Uh, not really. You know the reason why they know about all these fake registrations, right? Because ACORN is required by law to turn them in. They mark them and separate them and fire the people responsible for them. So no, there isn't an increase in the registered total because they are caught. Nice try, though, who do you get your talking points from?

Re:Overdrive

[Grishnakh]

Correction: Elements of both parties support the War in Iraq but you'll find far more people who oppose it on the Democratic side of the aisle (including the nominee for President) than you will on the Republican side (Ron Paul and who else?)

While it's true that there's always people in both parties who are exceptions to the rule (on any issue), generalizing is worthwhile. So, generally, the Democrats support the war, as when they grabbed power in '06, they did absolutely nothing to pull out. There might be a few Democrats who want to, but the party as a whole, under the leadership of Pelosi, has done nothing to pull out of Iraq.

Similarly, the party under Pelosi has done nothing to pursue impeachment of Bush or Cheney, even though a few elements (Kucinich) have pushed for it.

Americans as a whole have supported foreign interventionism since WW2. You can argue about whether or not that's in our best interests but the results of our last flirtation with isolationism weren't very encouraging.

I've heard it argued that American involvement in WWI is what directly led to WWII, and that the world would have been better off if we had not gotten involved in WWI and just let Germany win. They didn't get really nasty until they were oppressed by the Allies after their WWI defeat, and turned to fascism and Hitler.

After WWII, all our foreign interventionism has been disastrous. Korea wasn't terribly successful, and Vietnam was a complete disaster (and there was never a reason for us to go there anyway). I can't point to very many other campaigns that had any real justification either.

I don't view it as a 'bailout' -- I view it was a rescue plan -- so I'd imagine that you and I will never see eye to eye on this. I would say that you are painting with a broad brush here though -- there were lots of Democrats and Republicans that opposed the plan. Most of the opposition seemed to come from the far-right and far-left -- the very same people that place ideology ahead of reality.

The people who weren't opposed to it were the ones who created the mess in the first place through their disastrous economic policies, such as overturning the Glass-Steagal act (which was authored by Graham, now McCain's economic advisor, and signed into law by Clinton). Having the government take ownership of the financial sector amounts to fascism, and is not a solution.

Define "things that aren't important". I've commented on this many times in the past. It's only unimportant if it's not in your hometown. If it's in your hometown it's "economic development" -- if it's in mine it's "pork".

Sorry, but it's all pork, regardless of where it is. The Federal government has no business funding projects in States, except for things like National Parks. Bridges and the like are things States need to pay for themselves. Does the Federal government pave the roads in your subdivision, in front of your house? Of course not, that's a local or state responsibility. So why should the Federal government be involved in bridges, or other projects of local interest? You might be able to make a case for interstate highway infrastructure, where there's a strategic interest, but bridges to islands with 50 people on them do not fall in this category. Research on wool is also not something in the national interest.

I'm guessing you wouldn't view them as a distraction if you were gay or a rape victim.

When the economy is on the verge of complete collapse, as ours may be, gay marriage is, I'm sorry to say, an unimportant issue. I support it, in fact, since I believe everyone should be equal under law and that the government shouldn't support an establishment of religion (which is the entire source of any opposition to gay marriage) but compared to things like the enormous amounts of money we're wasting on the military and give-aways to Wall Street and the oil companies, it ranks pretty far down. It's just an issue designed to rile up the religious conservatives and

Re:Overdrive

[lennier]

"The American voter is not responsible for this. Your own nation's voters are."

That's just not true.

American foreign and economic policy HUGELY affects us non-Americans. You guys have the guns and the bankers which point at us and tell us what to do.

Believe me, here in New Zealand we'd *love* to live in a world where we got to vote on how we lived our life and American politicians we didn't elect didn't affect us.

Doesn't happen that way, sorry.

Re:Overdrive

[fbjon]

Holy shit, the conspiracy theories some people think up just because they're theoretically possible, assuming perfect collaboration and unity among the conspirators.

Re:Overdrive

[caitsith01]

This is exactly the kind of attitude the OP was talking about. I find it ironic that there are engaged and interested people all over the world who would love to have your vote, yet you refuse to apply your brain and engage in the political process because the candidates don't differ on your pet issues.

From the perspective of the rest of the world, Barak "Let's Talk to Both Our Friends and Our Enemies" Obama is a lot less of a worry than John "Bomb-bomb-bomb, Bomb-bomb-Iran" McCain. Obama has had to talk tough during the campaign to avoid a smear campaign, but it's clear that he favours engagement and multilateralism. McCain appears to favour the 'Bush Doctrine'.

From a domestic perspective, I would have thought that Obama's consistent view, expressed both before and after the current financial crisis, that the Federal Government has a significant role to play in regulating financial markets would be dramatically more appealing than McCain's consistent view that the free market should be left to its own devices at all times, no matter how compelling the evidence to the contrary.

There is also the fact that McCain has shown himself ready and willing to cater to absolute lunatics on the religious right who are anti-science, anti-liberal democracy, and just generally scare the hell out of most sane people. I have seen no evidence that Obama will be similarly beholden. I do not want a person who will tolerate the assertion by their running mate that dinosaurs and humans coexisted in charge of a nuclear arsenal.

Finally, and probably most singificantly, the next President will probably replace three of the most liberal judges on the Supreme Court. Do you want men like Scalia and Roberts to dominate the Court, or do you want moderate/progressive judges to provide a counterbalance to the extreme conservatives on the bench at present? In practical terms, if McCain wins, Roe v Wade is gone, gun control laws are gone, separation of church and state is gone, limits on executive power are gone, and any form of affirmative action is gone. Those things seem pretty significant to me.

There's no doubt Obama has engaged in plenty of compromising. As you would be well aware, the nature of your political system is such that there are plenty of times when a vote is going to pass anyway so moderates on either side of the aisle will vote for it. It's stupid and it shouldn't be that way, but it also means that voting records are not an accurate reflection of ideology.

Re:Overdrive

[caitsith01]

You're full of crap. If our elections are affecting you that much, that's your own fault. You should be electing leaders who would separate your country from ours as much as possible, instead of hitching your horses to our wagon (which is headed over a cliff).

Great, so you're going to withdraw all of your military forces back within your own borders like a normal country? And you'll abandon the Project for a New American Century and similar programs? And you're going to stop cranking out more greenhouse gases than countries double your size? Excellent, this is all fantastic. What's that? You'll even stop sponsoring nasty dicatorships to further your own interests because you've finally learnt the lessons of Afghanistan/Chile/Venezuela/Iraq/Iran/etc? Great! And you'll stop using your massive political, economic and military power to pressure other liberal democracies into following you down the road to an Orwellian super-state? Super.

Oh, no? You're not going to do all of that? Then in that case, I'm afraid US domestic politics will continue to be a very significant issue for the rest of us.

My vote this November is going to be for Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party.

Congratulations on choosing irrelevance on the basis of your own ignorance.

Re:Overdrive

[Grishnakh]

Great, so you're going to withdraw all of your military forces back within your own borders like a normal country? And you'll abandon the Project for a New American Century and similar programs?

I'd like to, but my fellow voters don't agree with me, so that's not going to happen. But, unless you happen to live in Iraq or Afghanistan, there's nothing about our military forces that's compelling your country to do anything my country's leaders want you to do. You have no excuse.

And you'll stop using your massive political, economic and military power to pressure other liberal democracies into following you down the road to an Orwellian super-state? Super.

Again, our military is no threat to those other liberal democracies, or any place more militarily powerful than Iraq for that matter. If you live in a western European country, or Australia, or any place like that, you have no excuse. It's your own fault that your leadership isn't acting in your best interests, not ours.

Oh, no? You're not going to do all of that? Then in that case, I'm afraid US domestic politics will continue to be a very significant issue for the rest of us.

Sorry, no. If you're not willing to hold your leaders accountable, then it's your own fault. The US doesn't have the power to make industrialized countries do anything they don't want to. Russia and China sure aren't following along with our wishes very well, and our military is no threat to them whatsoever. Your leaders are doing our bidding because they want to, not because of fear, and you people are to blame for not holding them accountable and choosing better leaders.

Every country gets the government it deserves.

Re:Overdrive

[jonaskoelker]

I'm with you most of the way. If you don't play, don't complain about not winning; sure.

It is clear that it doesn't take brains to vote for Democrats, which is why Democrats all look stupid. And the Republicans aren't far behind, so all you beer swilling Nascar idiots better shut up now.

I'm sure glad I'm Libertarian.

Here you're just being unnecessarily arrogant. For the record, it doesn't take brains to vote Libertarian. It takes a cross on a piece of paper [substitute your local equivalent]. Same is true for casting any other vote.

But let me ask, why are you glad you hold Libertarian views? How would you be unhappier if you were a Democrat? Or a Republican?

I think I'd be happier as a Democrat: then my guy would have good chances of winning (as it stands right now). And [if Obama wins] I'd be proud that my party was the first to put a black man in the oval office.

If I were a republican, I might be happy that my party has been in office, but I might also be not-so-happy about what those terms have done to the public perception of my party (from fiscally responsible and loved by the upper middle class to warmongering science-hating fundies).

[disclaimer, I'm not a US citizen, I've never been there, and the only black people I know are distant acquaintances].

Say I was a US citizen. I'd probably be happier as a Creationist than if I accepted the findings biology, geology, astronomy and probably some other science(s) I've left out, because then my country has, from my subjective viewpoint, seen the light of reason and accepted God. And some schools have finally put Creation Science, the only god-fearing kind of science, on the curriculum.

What, exactly, makes you happy about being Libertarian?

Re:Overdrive

[el_munkie]

From the perspective of the rest of the world, Barak "Let's Talk to Both Our Friends and Our Enemies" Obama is a lot less of a worry than John "Bomb-bomb-bomb, Bomb-bomb-Iran" McCain.

Yeah, because that was a statement of policy from McCain. Your definition of "using your brain" involves deliberately misinterpreting a joke?

Your entire comment consists of misrepresenting McCain's positions and emotional smears that are unfounded in reality. And the point? You just end up saying that, though their records are basically identical, Obama will be better than McCain because you have this gut feeling he will be.

There's no doubt Obama has engaged in plenty of compromising. As you would be well aware, the nature of your political system is such that there are plenty of times when a vote is going to pass anyway so moderates on either side of the aisle will vote for it. It's stupid and it shouldn't be that way, but it also means that voting records are not an accurate reflection of ideology.

And this is retarded. What kind of excuse is that? Voting Yea on something because it's going to pass anyway?

If you think Obama will be any different from McCain, you're a fool. If you want to vote for actual change, pick the most viable third party in your state and vote for them. Nader has my vote.

Re:Overdrive

[mqduck]

As I said in another post: if there was any justice in the world, everyone everywhere would have a vote for the next American Emperor of Earth.

On the other hand, you're almost entirely wrong that there are real differences between "the two" candidates. On every fundamental issue, they're practically two mirrors facing each other. I suppose Obama's mildly better than John Kerry, who quietly ran on a platform of increasing the number of troops in Iraq, but only by that little bit. He is in no way, shape or form an antiwar candidate. Economy? He's as bought off as any presidential candidate. There has in fact been more corporate funding of him than McCain.

I understand that the world cares, and that it has every reason to. But both Americans and the rest of the world shouldn't be fooled by the differing rhetoric of these two twin candidates.

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

In the whole world-wide spectrum line of politics, you will find the Ds to be very slightly left of center and the Rs to be very slightly right.

If you exclude the most obviously fucked up parts of the world that have dictators and Taliban-esque governments, then in the remaining world, the Ds are somewhat to the right of center and the Rs are quite a bit right of center.

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Because you know Gore was just itching to invade Iraq for no particular reason...

Re:Overdrive

[meringuoid]

Do you honestly believe that the world would be exactly the same as it is now, if Al Gore had won in 2000?

If Al Gore had won in 2000, there would probably have been some kind of shenanigans pulled to make sure Bush became president anyway.

Oh, wait...

Re:Overdrive

[Archangel Michael]

What, exactly, makes you happy about being Libertarian?

Smug Condescension.

All kidding aside, actually having definable articulated, reasoned and principled views on things like Liberty, Freedom and Governance, makes me happy.

My happiness is not dependent upon external forces, like Party Affiliation or whether or not my local Football team won this week.

Life is too short to depend upon others for enjoyment (or displeasure), or anything else for that matter. Which seems to me to be a core Libertarian value, even if it is unstated.

Re:Overdrive

[cat_jesus]

Would you be so kind as to point out why no one should vote for McCain?

Sure. Because the policies of the last 8 years created a huge mess. We now have a debt of over 10 trillion dollars, that's double what it was in 2000. McCain is not diverging from the failed policies of Bush.
I don't know about you, but I think rewarding failure is a really bad idea. The republicans have failed miserably. The current situation is what happens when you let them run the government.

Unfortunately, what you have done in the above post is not any different than what I would expect from Obama or McCain. That is, nobody is talking about issues, they are talking about emotions.

This is simply untrue. Obama talks about issues and solutions constantly. If you want details, he has them on his website.

Obama is clearly the smartest and most competent of the two. Not only that, but putting Palin one elderly heartbeat away from the presidency is unfathomably stupid. Sorry, it just is.

Re:Overdrive

[Uberbah]

Two words .... "INCOME REDISTRIBUTION"

Why do you hate capitalism so much?

Re:Overdrive

[Uberbah]

Our great democrat presidents have left us with the programs that are likely to eventually bankrupt the country - social security, medicare, and medicaid - because they have no cap on their cost.

You have that backwards. Our prosperity is directly tied to social programs like social security, medicare and medicaid because they support the middle class - the basis for our economy.

Re:Overdrive

[Shakrai]

here might be a few Democrats who want to, but the party as a whole, under the leadership of Pelosi, has done nothing to pull out of Iraq.

What do you want them to do? Cut off funding for the troops and sign their political death warrants? Bush will veto any bill with a timetable for withdrawal -- so the only choice the Democrats have is to refuse to pass any funding bill. If they did that we'd be looking at a GOP landslide and four more years of war.

Similarly, the party under Pelosi has done nothing to pursue impeachment of Bush or Cheney, even though a few elements (Kucinich) have pushed for it.

Again, look at the reality on the ground. Can you name me 16 Republican Senators that will vote for a conviction? (17 if Lieberman voted for acquittal, which seems likely) What would be the point of pursuing impeachment and further dividing this country when the outcome would be predetermined?

I've heard it argued that American involvement in WWI is what directly led to WWII, and that the world would have been better off if we had not gotten involved in WWI and just let Germany win. They didn't get really nasty until they were oppressed by the Allies after their WWI defeat, and turned to fascism and Hitler.

"Really" nasty is in the eye of the beholder. They weren't running death chambers in WW1 but they were fighting a war of aggression -- ever read the details of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk? In any case our involvement wasn't a sure thing until Germany started sinking American ships and plotting with our enemies in this hemisphere. Google the 'Zimmermann Telegram' for more information.

Korea wasn't terribly successful

It preserved South Korean independence. They are now a stable democracy and an ally of the United States. That's not 'terribly successful'? What would you have done differently in Truman's shoes? Expanded the war into China? Not fought it at all and allow the conquest of the South?

Vietnam was a complete disaster (and there was never a reason for us to go there anyway)

Blame that on the French ;)

The people who weren't opposed to it were the ones who created the mess in the first place through their disastrous economic policies, such as overturning the Glass-Steagal act (which was authored by Graham, now McCain's economic advisor, and signed into law by Clinton). Having the government take ownership of the financial sector amounts to fascism, and is not a solution.

So what would you do differently? Adopt a Libertarian laissez-faire approach and allow the collapse to happen? That might speed along the asset price readjustments that need to happen -- but it probably wouldn't be terribly popular with the millions of people who would lose their jobs. Remember that any plan you come up with needs the support of a majority of the electorate to be successful.

Sorry, but it's all pork, regardless of where it is. The Federal government has no business funding projects in States, except for things like National Parks. Bridges and the like are things States need to pay for themselves. Does the Federal government pave the roads in your subdivision, in front of your house? Of course not, that's a local or state responsibility. So why should the Federal government be involved in bridges, or other projects of local interest? You might be able to make a case for interstate highway infrastructure, where there's a strategic interest, but bridges to islands with 50 people on them do not fall in this category. Research on wool is also not something in the national interest.

I agree with you. The blue states tend to pay out more in Federal taxes than they take back in -- my state gets something like 80% back. The other 20% is "redistributed" to poorer red states who then boast about how low their state taxes are and steal ou

Re:Overdrive

[Anonymous Coward]

Different type of evil, same degree of evil.

Linux? No CNN.

[arhhook]

I tried during the last debate to watch it on CNN.com/live but it appeared their video player didn't allow Ubuntu/Firefox to connect. After further research, they use some vbscript in their code. I'll definitely watch it, just not with CNN.

cnn.com/live

[Anonymous Coward]

I used cnn.com/live for the previous debates.

Works great.

This presumes....

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

This presumes that one would want to subject themselves to a public hanging of rights in effigy.

Re:This presumes....

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem with the debates is that they lack depth. The same "big" issues are discussed over and over, rather than moving on to other issues. Look at abortion. Relatively speaking, nothing really changes regarding abortion because changing it is difficult and potentially political suicide. But both sides talk about it as if it is the issue. Gun control? Same. Etc. etc.

Re:This presumes....

[iminplaya]

Because if they talk about real issues, both candidates could lose the election, and the Party could lose its 99.9% majority in congress. Gotta stay "focused".

Much easier at 1.5X speed

[ccandreva]

I have TV. I still set my MythTV to record it, and started watching about an hour in.

Why ? So I could use time-stretch to watch it at 1.5X speed. They take forever to say the simplest thing.

Time stretch is amazing. Get done in less time, without everyone sounding like chipmunks.

Re:Much easier at 1.5X speed

[rolfwind]

How does time stretch work? (Yes I googled it, all I get is a bunch of how-to about installing myth-tv.)

BTW, /., logging in the new way sucks, change it back to the old way that has been changed for a while now without reason? Used to be able to log-in WHILE making a comment. Now, follow the log-in link, log-in, take you to the front page rather than the comment you were going to reply to. Why make it more of a hassle and less convenient than it used to be?

Re:Much easier at 1.5X speed

[clone53421]

I'm guessing it also does a frequency shift on the audio so it's the same pitch at a different speed.

Re:Much easier at 1.5X speed

[bugeaterr]

I have MythTV, but it only records what Obama says. ;)

IT'S A JOKE PEOPLE!

Re:Much easier at 1.5X speed

[Zarf]

I have TV. I still set my MythTV to record it, and started watching about an hour in.

Why ? So I could use time-stretch to watch it at 1.5X speed. They take forever to say the simplest thing.

Time stretch is amazing. Get done in less time, without everyone sounding like chipmunks.

My MythTV box died a while ago and that time-stretch feature is by far the number one thing that I miss. I am going to replace my MythTV box just for that. I'm not aware of any other DVR that does that. It's an awesome little feature. The debates would have been so much more interesting in time-stretch.

Re:Much easier at 1.5X speed

[neurovish]

I have TV. I still set my MythTV to record it, and started watching about an hour in.

Why ? So I could use time-stretch to watch it at 1.5X speed. They take forever to say the simplest thing.

Time stretch is amazing. Get done in less time, without everyone sounding like chipmunks.

I think watching a presidential debate in chipmunk style would make it all the more tolerable. That way the presentation would match the message.

Re:Much easier at 1.5X speed

[Hatta]

Isn't the point of watching TV to enjoy it? Why would you want to rush something that's supposed to be enjoyable?

Re:Much easier at 1.5X speed

[bill_mcgonigle]

Isn't the point of watching TV to enjoy it? Why would you want to rush something that's supposed to be enjoyable?

Wait... somebody enjoys these debates?

(seriously, I enjoy a good debate, but these aren't those)

Re:Much easier at 1.5X speed

[Anonymous Coward]

On Windows, you can watch any movie with time-stretch using the ReClock driver. It works with a number of players. I use it with ZoomPlayer. ReClock is transparent--set it up once and it makes the player's cue/rev functions pitch neutral. Its main purpose is smooth playback across framerates (cine/PAL/NTSC) without pitch alteration, but time-stretch is a nice collateral.

Re:Much easier at 1.5X speed

[Zarf]

On Windows, you can watch any movie with time-stretch using the ReClock driver.

Wow, thanks, I'll have to try windows one of these days! I hear that windows is pretty good but I've never used it.

Re:Much easier at 1.5X speed

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you also watch it at half speed? I'm kinda stoned^Wslow.

Foxnews.com has it live.

[bonkeydcow]

Foxnews.com had the second debate live, i watched it that way because i was recording 2 things already on my tivo.

Re:Foxnews.com has it live.

[Anonymous Coward]

That wasn't a bad way to watch it, and I'm glad they added the disclaimer "Flames added electronically by Fox News" whenever Obama was talking. Very fair and balanced of them.

podcasts? audio? mp3's ?

[mystik]

Anyone happen to know where one could pickup MP3's of the event? archive.org has a few debates from last time around, but nothing current, and I have not been able to pick them up.

iTunes used to have them the last time I used iTunes. Sadly, my Mac died a long time ago, and I haven't been able to sign on to the iTunes store in a *long* time.

Re:podcasts? audio? mp3's ?

[kevin_conaway]

Try C-SPAN

Re:podcasts? audio? mp3's ?

[Dekortage]

iTunes is not just on the Mac -- it's available for Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. But thanks for the tip about having the audio files there; I'll check it out.

Re:podcasts? audio? mp3's ?

[mystik]

Awesome, I spotted the links I wanted @ the bottom, I didn't see that the first few times I searched.

thanks again!

Re:podcasts? audio? mp3's ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another thing you can do once the debate is available on youtube is plug the youtube URL into http://www.vidtomp3.com/ or http://www.flvto.com/ which will rip the audio and give it to you as an mp3.

Multicast

[mknewman]

This is why Multicast would have been so nice, one feed goes out to anyone who wanted it. The current point to point way of distributing video is a quick and dirty solution, where multicast is eligant.

Re:Multicast

[camperdave]

The thing I never understood is how do you get everyone watching at the same time? If Antonia starts at 8:00, and Bob starts at 8:04, how is a multicast going to help?

Re:Multicast

[snowraver1]

Could you imagine the elegance that the spammers would be able to manage if multicast were allowed?

Re:Multicast

[blhack]

The thing I never understood is how do you get everyone watching at the same time? If Antonia starts at 8:00, and Bob starts at 8:04, how is a multicast going to help?

It would work exactly the same way that a television does.

That is, a television with several [hundred] gigabytes of storage space, and [usually] over a gig of memory. You'd be able to cache it.

Re:Multicast

[mknewman]

Multicast is not for 'prerecored' material, it's for a live feed.

Re:Multicast

[camperdave]

So Bob misses out on the first 4 minutes of the stream?

Re:Multicast

[mknewman]

You have to 'subscribe' to a feed on multicast. All the channels go out but until you connect to your peer and ask for the feed it does not start being sent. Spammers would never be able to use it because they would never deliver any messages. It's meant for audio/video also, not text.

Re:Multicast

[blhack]

So Bob misses out on the first 4 minutes of the stream?

Not if Bob's client has the ability to cache the stream as it is coming in.

Re:Multicast

[clone53421]

Bob missed the first 4 minutes.

Re:Multicast

[clone53421]

Yeah, but he'd have to start the client at 8:00 anyway. Assuming the feed doesn't exist until then, he wouldn't be able to set it up beforehand either.

Re:Multicast

[Anonymous Coward]

But then how would Verizon bitch that their pipes are clogged because they are not a dump truck?

Re:Multicast

[Dare nMc]

isn't bit torrent, and mirohttp://www.getmiro.com/ better for this? I understand multi-cast saves the broadcaster, at the cost of everyone else (those who doesn't want the content, get bandwidth used anyway.) getting feeds from anyone who thinks everyone will want to see their content? I understand in the scenario where 10 people on the same wire would want it multicast, but is that ever realistic outside of a enterprise setting? With miro/torrent everyone who wants to see the content instantly becomes a mirror, if the packet priority is set correctly in the torrent their will be a delay in the start, but it's not like the whole download has to be complete or be available for miro to start playing (I think, not true for a torrent currently, but a possibility.)

Re:Multicast

[haploc]

It's meant for audio/video also, not text.

Not necessarily. Multicast is being used for a variety of data in different sectors.
e.g. Lots of financial data is being subscribed through multicast streams within several financial institutions.

Re:Multicast

[blhack]

It would work pretty much in the same way that a television with a mythtv does.

Re:Multicast

[TheRaven64]

No. First, you are confusing multicast with broadcast. Multicast only sends to the people who want it, and only sends one copy of the packet along the common lines. If 100 people in the UK are watching something being multicast from the USA, then only one copy of the data will be sent over the transatlantic pipe and then one copy to each ISP, and then one copy to each viewer.

Bittorrent, in contrast, is a spectacularly inefficient protocol. As well as using significantly more bandwidth than a client-server architecture, it also doesn't optimise at all for cheap bandwidth.

Re:Multicast

[clone53421]

Bittorrent, in contrast, is a spectacularly inefficient protocol. As well as using significantly more bandwidth than a client-server architecture, it also doesn't optimise at all for cheap bandwidth.

Can you explain that a bit better please? Bittorrent distributes the uploading so the server isn't handling the full demand. Naturally that means that the ISP-level infrastructure gets more use while the server's end gets less, but the overall bandwidth use shouldn't be different, just distributed differently. Or am I mistaken?

What is this Russia?

[Anonymous Coward]

and how many of us "no longer have a tv"?

Re:What is this Russia?

[Skapare]

I only "have" TV because my roommate has TV (because of his addiction to "Deal Or No Deal"). It's generally not worth having because it's content controlled by big corporations, not real people.

Re:What is this Russia?

[mcgrew]

In Soviet Oceana, TV watches YOU!

Actually I wondered the same thing. I don't know a single person without a TV. Most people I know have several (I only have one, but there are three in my house, Robyn's is stored and Charlie has one). I don't have cable, but that's no problem as the debates are on half the channels I get.

My problem is I don't know which candidate to vote for, but none of the three who might get my vote are included in the festivities. As I've already decided I'm voting against both McCain and Obama, there's little point in watching them debate.

Re:What is this Russia?

[cicatrix1]

It shouldn't be that hard to determine. People without a TV can't seem to go 2 sentences without mentioning the fact. I almost want to buy these people a TV to get them to STFU and reduce their smug levels a bit.

Re:What is this Russia?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to avoid things that are controlled by huge corporations, then make sure not to use any electricity, fill your car up with gas, or fly on a commercial airplane. Maybe your best option would be to dig a hole, jump in it, and wait for the apocalypse.

Re:What is this Russia?

[iminplaya]

At least one...

Re:What is this Russia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the fuck are Robyn and Charlie???

Re:What is this Russia?

[LunaticTippy]

My ladyfriend doesn't have a TV. She only watches stuff online. I've noticed more and more younger people aren't as TV centric. I don't use my TV much anymore. I get so spoiled watching things on my schedule without ads, and I don't want to pay money for a Tivo/mythbox. I even watch ads online sometimes if they don't abuse the privilege. Hulu hasn't pissed me off too much so far with ads.

I'm going to watch the debate because one of those two will be the next US president. It doesn't really matter who I would prefer the most or who I am voting for - I am curious about what the next president is like.

Re:What is this Russia?

[fluffman86]

I have a "televisor" (television set in Spanish...the actual hardware), but not "television" (television in Spanish...the actual feed coming into the home).

Why? Because:
  A) I can't really afford cable.
  B) 99% of what's on TV (cable and broadcast alike) is tripe.
  C) The ads drive me crazy.
  D) I can't pick up a decent broadcast signal from the nearest city.

Instead, I am perfectly capable of buying/downloading my favorite shows that I can watch when I want AND without the ads. As for the live debate, the BBC has a great feed (as I already mentioned above).

Re:What is this Russia?

[Robotbeat]

This is actually #28 on the list of "Stuff White People Like."
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/26/28-not-having-a-tv/

The number one reason why white people like not having a TV is so that they can tell you that they don't have a TV.
. ...
It is effective in making other white people feel bad, and making themselves feel good about their life and life choices.
Though these people often fill their time by talking with other friends who don't watch TV about how they don't watch TV, looking at leaves, cooking, reading books about left wing politics, and going to concerts/protests/poetry slams.

Re:What is this Russia?

[Knuckles]

If you're going to avoid things that are controlled by huge corporations, then make sure not to use any electricity, fill your car up with gas, or fly on a commercial airplane. Maybe your best option would be to dig a hole, jump in it, and wait for the apocalypse.

He said "content", not "things". +1 Insightful, my ass.

Re:What is this Russia?

[mcgrew]

Well, I don't watch TV a lot; in fact I seldom watch it, when I do it's the news, My Name Is Earl or a DVD or tape. But I have one even if I don't use it much.

Re:What is this Russia?

[dmitriy88]

Russia could be a bad example. You should use Eritrea for a much stronger emphasis.

Re:What is this Russia?

[Cigarra]

He must be white.

Re:What is this Russia?

[perilandmishap]

Actually, I go out of my way to not bring it up - I have a hard enough time convincing people that I'm not a social leper. But people talk about tv a lot, and I often have to explain why I have no idea what they are talking about. IMHO some folks are uncomfortable with the amount of tv they watch, this explains why a decision to distract oneself with something other than tv is interpreted as smugness rather than a personal choice.

Re:What is this Russia?

[mcgrew]

Charlie is one of the three ladies who live with me, Robyn is an ex-girlfriend who has stuff stored in my basement. I see you don't read my journals... caution, nsfw.

Re:What is this Russia?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand the trend with people going on and on about not having a TV.

"I don't have a tv, but I watch *insert show* on my computer" Or, "I don't like TV; ooh I just got *box set of TV Show"

Re:What is this Russia?

[LunaticTippy]

I am in the middle of moving and am considering just not moving my TV. I never replaced my big TV when it finally died so I was using an old spare 19" one. I have bigger monitors sitting around doing nothing. I haven't watched anything OTA in years. I feel a little strange about it since I had my own TV since I was in college, but it won't really affect me at all.

I like Earl too, although I have never once watched it OTA.

Re:What is this Russia?

[Anonymous Coward]

some of us have tvs but don't have cable you insensitive clod!

Re:What is this Russia?

[porges]

I have a hard enough time convincing people that I'm not a social leper.

That doesn't seem like the kind of thing you can argue your way out of.

Re:What is this Russia?

[meringuoid]

and how many of us "no longer have a tv"?

TV... that's the monitor that's attached to the Wii, right?

What's that? A TV is something you... watch shows on? No, silly. That's BitTorrent.

Check Ustream.TV

[mariushm]

There will be plenty of live streams with it on Ustream.TV

On last debate there were over 4000 simultaneous viewers on a stream and it worked fine.

What could possibly change your mind?

[tjstork]

At this point? I'm watching the NLCS.

Re:What could possibly change your mind?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you watching the NLCS? Are you going to see something thats going to 'change your mind' of which team you are going to cheer for?

I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[Bearpaw]

They don't have "analysts" telling me what my reaction is.

C-SPAN

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[eln]

I agree. The only issue with C-SPAN is you have to make sure you don't doze off and forget to change the channel before the call-in portion starts. If you listen to that garbage for too long, your brain will start leaking out of your ears in an attempt to escape the inanity.

But yes, it still beats the hell out of every other station's punditry.

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[iminplaya]

Then how are you going to know who to vote for? I mean I've seen plenty of sitcoms that I didn't know were funny until I heard the laughtrack. Which kinda leads me to think WTF.

smile

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[dbcad7]

The (I'll call them anals for short) don't tell me what my reaction is.. I do however listen to some of the crap they say, to gauge the bias of the network.. I mean I watched the same thing they did.. I can concede when a candidate (even one I am not supporting) makes a good point, and keep my own score in my head.. it's when the score in my head is like 20-2 and they call it a draw, or say that they both did well, that I realize that the media is still not where they need to be.... They haven't done anything to change my reaction, they have only told me about their networks (or their own) integrity, and that is interesting in a way... I am sure there are people weak minded enough to have their views changed by what these people say, so I would kind of like to know what they are saying.

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[jarbrewer]

Or "moderators" telling me that post was Insightful.

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[Hatta]

I find the analyst commentary the most entertaining part. No, I don't need them to tell me what to think, for that matter I don't need the candidates to tell me what to think either. If you're watching them to get informed, you're doing it wrong. You should know that they are lying to you to get your vote.

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[Bearpaw]

I am sure there are people weak minded enough to have their views changed by what these people say, so I would kind of like to know what they are saying.

I once heard someone in advertising say that some of the easiest people to manipulate are the ones who are convinced that they're too smart (or whatever) to be manipulated.

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[timeOday]

I don't like analyst reactions either. I do like the idea of "sharing" the experience with somebody outside my own family in real-time though. I tried IRC, but it was too distracting and the quality of the comments was horrible.

What I'd like to find is one of those real-time "happy meters" that thousands of people can log into and each push an "approve" or "disapprove" button whenever they like. The meter would show the aggregate in real-time.

I just assume somebody has already set this up, but I've searched and failed to find it?

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

a.k.a. "liberals"

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[Knara]

I also find the analysts the most entertaining part, if for no other reason than the (usually new face) partisan representative that gets brought in that is spinning faster than it was previously believed to be humanly possible. It's like watching someone who was just thawed out and their entire world view was presented to them on note cards, 10 minutes before they were put in front of the camera.

To me, that's comedy.

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[Chosen Reject]

I do however listen to some of the crap they say, to gauge the bias of the network

No, you're only gauging them on how they differ from your own bias. Taking your example, you could say it was 20-2, they could say it was a draw, but iit could have really been 2-20 (for whatever "really" means"). So you might decide they are liberally/conservatively biased when really they just aren't as liberally/conservatively biased as you are.

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

That only applies to idiots.

I happen to know advertising doesn't work on me, because I haven't bought anything that I've seen an advertisement for - in years.

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[cayenne8]

I can also catch it on the local PBS station(s) too, without much commentary.

It comes in HD on PBS too.

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[phreakincool]

Well thanks for confirming that you are, indeed, a caveman.

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[jamesswift]

I'd pay for MST3000 Presidential Debates

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[Sj0]

You betcha! You're way too smart to fall for that left-wing liberal claptrap! Buy my book and learn more about those damned dirty liberals and their scheming!

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[kayditty]

I once heard someone in advertising say that some of the easiest people to manipulate are the ones who are convinced that they're too smart (or whatever) to be manipulated.

so?

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you must be Amish. Tell me, do you read /. in newspaper form, or is the printing press too new-fangled for you?

Re:I prefer C-SPAN for live, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't buy it.

I don't know anyone who doesn't own a TV!!

[jskline]

I for one have a High Definition TV receiver plugin for my laptop and it coincidentally can also record and time shift. So I can comfortably place it aside and let it record the thing for me to watch later when I have the time and its in high definition to boot. Online viewing right now just plain sucks.

Re:I don't know anyone who doesn't own a TV!!

[csnydermvpsoft]

What good is HD for a debate?

Re:I don't know anyone who doesn't own a TV!!

[camperdave]

Maybe he wants to vote for whomever sprays the least while they talk.

Re:I don't know anyone who doesn't own a TV!!

[jskline]

I just like the better picture quality than the regular (Never Twice the Same Colors) 4x3 and fuzzy (sometimes fussy) picture. Once you try it, you might never also want to go back.

Re:I don't know anyone who doesn't own a TV!!

[skeeto]

I don't have a television so the only way for me to watch it is online.

And yes, I have seen that Onion article.

Re:I don't know anyone who doesn't own a TV!!

[Anonymous Coward]

What good is HD for a debate?

Duh...you can CLEARLY see how unshaven one of the candidates is, and adjust your vote accordingly.

Re:I don't know anyone who doesn't own a TV!!

[jskline]

ROTFLMAO..... I forgot about that... LOL

Re:I don't know anyone who doesn't own a TV!!

[porges]

What good is HD for a debate?

I think you need the HD feed of CNN to watch the approve/disapprove meters, if you're into that.

My challenge

[bogaboga]

My challenge with anything video online is my ISP's bandwidth caps. I am capped at 60GB per month combined download and upload. Streaming video can add up fast! My issues with Firefox only showing a black box for CNN's streaming video was solved. I do not know who solved it...CNN or Firefox folks. But it's good news nonetheless.

I will probably be on the road while the debate is going on...but have Mythbuntu programmed to record the show, including all the pundits' takes after the debate.

The trouble is, MythBuntu creates huge files (2.2 GB for just 1 hr), making disk space run fast. I just wish my man success. Can you guess who it is?

Re:My challenge

[zippthorne]

A 500 GB drive costs about $70 these days ($50 if you're willing to trust small dealers). Is 30 cents per hour (reusable) really a problem?

Re:My challenge

[Chaos Incarnate]

The trouble is, MythBuntu creates huge files (2.2 GB for just 1 hr), making disk space run fast.

Given that they want it to encode in real-time, and they want it to not look like crap, their options were rather limited in terms of codecs. You can get greater compressibility, but almost always at the expense of time.

Re:My challenge

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much nothing is done in real-time anyway, thanks to Janet Jackson's boob.

No Hulu for me

[grouchomarxist]

I'm an American living abroad and Hulu has region restrictions, so it doesn't work for me. Bastards.

Re:No Hulu for me

[fm6]

Get a VPN account with a U.S. provider. Not only gives you access to U.S. content, it protects your system when you're using hotspots.

Re:No Hulu for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an American living abroad and VPN is my friend.
Just VPN to any server running on a computer with an American IP and you should be good to go.
They say McCain is going to show the Obama-Ayers homemade porn video, on the debate tonight.

Re:No Hulu for me

[qcubed]

I've been having luck with BBC's coverage. Flash player is all that's needed.

Re:No Hulu for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Try using a US based proxy - I've done this to watch content on Hulu from Europe and depending on the proxy the footage streams fast enough for confort.

As it's not what proxies are meant for, I won't recommend the proxy at Princeton by direct link, rather just mention it and leave you to the googles.

Note: this worked for Hulu - but hung when I tried to view archived episodes from, the altogether separate, www.thedailyshow.com

Re:No Hulu for me

[Anonymous Coward]

That appears to be true of the library, the live feed is coming through fine for me.

Re:No Hulu for me

[Anonymous Coward]

They even manage to block US proxies. A VPN connection, such as Hotspot Shield, works (instructions). But it's slow.

"Presidential Agreement"

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad its written, directed and produced by the republicans and democrats. Its not like the coporate media, who contributes heavily to both parties, will ask any hard questions. There will never again be a third party in the debates. Hardly a non-partisan 'debate'. The last two elections were very likely stolen anyhow. Personally, I can see almost no difference between these republicrats. I hope Donald Duck wins the election. Considering how secure the electronic voting machines are, its not that unlikely.

Re:"Presidential Agreement"

[coryking]

If you honestly cannot see a difference between McCain and Obama, you might as well write in Palin for president because your IQ would be about the same.

Nader framed his campaigns as "the other guys are basically the same party". As we watch the GOP implode and Bush go down as the worst president in history, are you honestly going to say that there is no difference between both parties, their platforms and their candidates? Seriously?

Do you really foresee an Obama administration twisting words like Terrorism, Freedom (fries), Patriot, etc? Do you foresee him installing crazy supreme court judges that have and will continue to fuck our country until they retire? Do you foresee him installing a vice president who refuses to talk with the press and cannot answer basic questions?

Seriously? Really?

Re:"Presidential Agreement"

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I can see almost no difference between these republicrats.

If you really can't see much difference between the two then you aren't paying much attention.

Re:"Presidential Agreement"

[Skapare]

There are basic fundamental differences between Barack Obama and John McCain in how they will each end up screwing things up. It's really a choice of which way you want to have the country screwed up.

Re:"Presidential Agreement"

[Mustakrakish]

Do you really foresee an Obama administration twisting words like Terrorism, Freedom (fries), Patriot, etc?

Sure. He's twisted what the word racism means. Under Dear Leader Obama, Terrorism will mean anything conservative, freedom will have no meaning, and a Patriot is the fascist goon squads Obama will create - oh, I mean, "National Security Force"

Do you foresee him installing crazy supreme court judges that have and will continue to fuck our country until they retire?

Why yes, he's already said he would appoint moonbat crazy liberals.

Do you foresee him installing a vice president who refuses to talk with the press and cannot answer basic questions?

Joe Biden lives in a fantasy land where we (with the French) threw Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Biden is a fucking moron.

In conclusion: To Hell With Barack Obama and the Nazis that support him.

Re:"Presidential Agreement"

[PunkOfLinux]

Oh, you're replacing "Bush/McCain" with Obama! Haha!! I get it!!

Re:"Presidential Agreement"

[zippthorne]

• Do you really foresee an Obama administration twisting words like Terrorism, Freedom (fries), Patriot, etc?

  Absolutely not. Well, maybe Freedom. In general, though, leftists like Obama have a whole different set of words they twist to coax your liberty away. Obama won't be interested in HomeSec (but he won't be interested in doing anything about it, either). He will instead focus on taking your treasure and giving it to administrators of programs which claim to help poor people.

• Do you foresee him installing crazy supreme court judges that have and will continue to fuck our country until they retire?

  Yes. Although, both parties have put some crazies on. In fact, I was extremely disappointed in Bush for not elevating Thomas to chief and adding another "regular" justice. Who says the new guy has to be in charge?

• Do you foresee him installing a vice president who refuses to talk with the press and cannot answer basic questions?

  Nope. Obama chose Biden. He loves to talk to the press. What he says is another matter. It was quite disappointing that Palin was unable to call him on his brazen statements. He was nearly Clintonian in his ability to use true statements to fabricate erroneous impressions in the Debate.

  Palin on the other hand was clearly not quite ready for the national stage. I'm glad she's not running for President. But she is clearly intelligent and passionate, and McCain appears to have chosen a lieutenant he can train to fill his shoes. Obama seems to have chosen one who can train HIM.

But.. Please stop forcing me to defend McCain. He's done some scummy things to this country in the name of "crossing the aisle" during his term as Media Darling and Maverick Senator. Unfortunately, he's the only thing standing between us and the terrifying efficiency of "Same party Congress and President."

Re:"Presidential Agreement"

[cat_jesus]

Yes. Although, both parties have put some crazies on. In fact, I was extremely disappointed in Bush for not elevating Thomas to chief and adding another "regular" justice. Who says the new guy has to be in charge?

There really should be a -2 batshit crazy mod point available.

Re:"Presidential Agreement"

[Anonymous Coward]

There really should be a -2 batshit crazy mod point available.
We'd wear it out using it on barking moonbat liberals like you.

Re:"Presidential Agreement"

[Relic of the Future]

Ignoring AC's assertion that there are no differences between the candidates, he *does* have a good point that these debates are being generated not by any independent organization or media, but by a join venture of the Republican and Democratic parties.

This was not always the case: up until '88, the League of Women Voters would organize the pressidential debates. But they got so fed-up with the Democrats and Republicans throwing hissy fits about the format and trying to block out third-party candidates, that they withdrew from that role.

Re:"Presidential Agreement"

[cat_jesus]

We'd wear it out using it on barking moonbat liberals like you.

This is really funny. I'm a cold war veteran and gun owner. I support the death penalty and I oppose most recycling and I've voted for John Warner. Oh yeah and I also support nuclear energy.

If you can't see past the team mentality you will forever remain cartoonish in your political views. You will continue to choose a position first and then rationalize your choice like most people do. Rational, thoughtful, mature people evaluate and analyze in order to come to a position.

Re:"Presidential Agreement"

[Shakrai]

We'd wear it out using it on barking moonbat liberals like you.

The difference between the barking moonbat liberals and the batshit crazy conservatives is that the moonbat liberals haven't had a vehicle to obtain power in a really long time. But that's ok -- don't let that little fact distract you from blaming them for all of our problems.

Re:"Presidential Agreement"

[Hatta]

Lets look at some policies. Iraq war, pretty much the same. We'll take the troops out of Iraq when the conditions on the ground allow it, and put them in Afghanistan. Domestic wiretapping? Obama voted for the Bush plan. Economic bailout? Both of them voted for it. I don't see either of them talking about fundamental change in the way our system works. I don't see either of them talking about cracking down on corporate crime. I don't see either of them talking about returning federal power to its constitutional limits. I don't see either of them talking about Instant Runoff Voting. I don't see either of them talking about ending the war on drugs, or stopping the new war on copyright infringers.

Nader was, and is correct. I'll either be voting for him in Nov, or staying home.

OGG or other?

[Rinisari]

Anyone ballsy enough to stream using a more widely available, non-Flash codec?

Re:OGG or other?

[bendodge]

Are you speaking of MMS? I know we're supposed to hate anything Windows, but that one works well and is implemented in most Linux distros. (It's also relatively easy to capture...)

Re:OGG or other?

[Valdrax]

Anyone ballsy enough to stream using a more widely available, non-Flash codec?

Are you actually arguing that OGG is more widely available to the viewing public than Flash, Real, or WMV?

It's not about "balls." It's about installed base and the marginal utility of supporting OGG compared to formats installed already on most people's machines. I'd love to see an OGG stream of the debates, but I wouldn't claim that it's "more widely available" in an attempt to suggest that people aren't supporting it for illogical reasons.

Re:OGG or other?

[Eil]

Here are the URLs for C-SPAN and C-SPAN2. One of them ought to be showing the debate.

C-SPAN: http://play.rbn.com/play.asx?url=cspan/cspan/wmlive/cspan1v.asf&proto=mms?mswmext=.asx

C-SPAN2: http://play.rbn.com/play.asx?url=cspan/cspan/wmlive/cspan2v.asf&proto=mms?mswmext=.asx

VLC and MPlayer play both of these fine, though VLC seems to work somewhat better.

Re:OGG or other?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Young Turks will be streaming the debate with their usual brand of witty ( read:liberal ) commentary:

http://www.theyoungturks.com/

The file embedded in the flash player on their site is wmv. So with the correct Gstreamer/other codecs installed you can watch it directly using Gnome's Totem or VLC , mplayer xines etc by opening this URL:

mmsh://winmedia.voxcdn.net/3137-live1-wmv?MSWMExt=.asf

Lets hope Slashdot users don't overwhelm the voxcdn.net server!

Also check out their YouTube channel for hilarious and informative past videos.

See you at the debate!

Cheers

A OTA tunner for your pc is that hard to get?

[Joe The Dragon]

The only hard thing that I see it trying to get CH 2 HD in chicago.

Fox has baseball but it will be on NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS free over the air.

Re:A OTA tunner for your pc is that hard to get?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an OTA tuner, dual HD tuner actually, but I get no antenna reception, so it doesn't do me much good.

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[lowlymarine]

Somewhat unsurprisingly, I found MSNBC's feed to work only in IE (and thusly only on Windows). Didn't work in Firefox 3 or Opera 9.6b on either Ubuntu or Windows.

BBC

[Speare]

I didn't want to install some stupid plugins and codecs for other networks, so I just hopped over to the BBC for their live streaming web broadcasts. The little screen is not going to be confused for HD but there were no hiccups or dropouts for the other three debates so far. Why depend on US broadcasters when all eyes around the world are paying attention to the high-stakes face off of US political elections?

Re:BBC

[Attaturk]

You beat me to it. I just double-checked and according to this page:

The final US presidential debate will be available live in streaming video on the BBC news website, with full commentary, a blow-by-blow description, and analysis, from 0100 GMT.

MySpace

[More Trouble]

Personally, I watched the first two presidential debates and the vp debate streaming live from MySpace. I don't use MySpace for anything else. Quality was OK. I like that I get the feed from before & after commercial TV picks it up. More like being in the audience.

Silverlight

[SuseLover]

Will I be able to watch it without stupid Silverlight? It'd be nice to be able to watch from my Linux box :-(

Try Streaming Bittorrent

[SleptThroughClass]

Hulu should offer a streaming bittorrent feed as an alternative. We discussed the technology here earlier. The client's interface could be better, but at least it's something which might help with the bandwidth issues.

Re:Try Streaming Bittorrent

[spinkham]

Note that Joost was a bittorent like if not bittorrent based streaming service, and it has now completed its switched to the in browser flash based model.
Joost came before hulu, had more hype then hulu, but hulu still ate it's lunch.
Granted, some of the reason is content, but some of it is the fact that people just prefer to use their web browser for everything these days.
I preferred the quality when Joost was P2P, but the market has voted.

Yes

[Skapare]

Sure, I am. Just hook me up with a few dozen OC-192 connections at each of the largest 100 cities in the country, and set me up with 1000 computers at each site, and I'll stream it in OGG Theora format. Oh, and I'll also need a satellite dish and receiver tuned to the C-SPAN channel.

LowTech

[Quiet_Desperation]

There's also that whole "radio" thing.

How time stretch works

[tepples]

How does time stretch work?

Wikipedia knows.

Re:How time stretch works

[Anonymous Coward]

Maaaaaaagic!

Broadcast TV: Forgotten Already

[fm6]

For those of us that no longer have a television,

Who, the Amish? They don't vote.

Almost everybody else has free TV, for now at least. Even if you live in a really bad reception area (as I do) you can probably get one or two network stations. You might need one of those silver wirey things, it's called an antenna.

I have one of those somewhere, but if I decided to watch the debate, I guess it would probably be easier to call up a stream. Still, I hate looking at politicians, so I'll probably resort to another obsolete technology, radio.

Re:Broadcast TV: Forgotten Already

[No2Gates]

Yeah, but if you live in an area with bad reception and February 2009 rolls around, your picture is going to be crap even with a converter. If you don't get a decent signal for digital, it's going to be like watching "Lego TV" with all the blocks on the screen.

I was thinking that instead of the debate, we could decide it with them playing "Rockem-Sockem Robots"

Re:Broadcast TV: Forgotten Already

[Khashishi]

For those of us that no longer have a television,

Almost everybody else has free TV, for now at least.

You know, not everyone is able to directly translate signals from one of those silver wirey things connected to the head. Some people need, you know, a TV.

Re:Broadcast TV: Forgotten Already

[Jeff Hornby]

But there's more to TV than just a signal. Most people who want to watch TV need this large box with a weird glass insert called a "screen" in it. If you don't have that, it's kind of difficult to watch a television broadcast no matter how good an antenna you have.

Re:Broadcast TV: Forgotten Already

[fm6]

What? This is America. Everybody gets a TV implant at birth!

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[larry bagina]

Barack Obama supports Linux. I did some freelance work for his North Carolina campaign headquarters, settting up a gentoo box for use as their intranet server. I met BO and talked about linux and modernizing the Federal Government, access to information, etc. He'll probably be a very linux-friendly administration. It may not be year of the linux desktop yet, but it will be year of the linux whitehouse.

Just buy a TV!

[CaptainJeff]

Seriously. The question has to do with live events on TV. Live events are (almost always) broadcast on network TV which you can get for free over-the-air. You can walk in to your local BestBuy/Walmart/Target/whatever and buy a fairly small TV set for under $100. Then you can watch live TV events on a TV, and live. Trying to work through all of the hoops that are necessary to do this over the interwebtubes, when you can spend $100 to just do it the traditional way, tells me that you are trying to use your trust hammer to fasten in a screw. Yes, I know this will not work when the over-the-air signals convert to digital. Then you will need to buy a converter, which you can get for almost nothing with the federal incentive program for this purpose.

Why bother?

[bonch]

Why bother watching? Your vote doesn't count anyway. It's the "swing voters" who decide elections, the uninformed nitwits who don't even look at the policies of each candidate. They're the ones who re-elected Bush. They're the ones who are going to hand the Democrats a supermajority next year, even though the Democrats encouraged the high-risk loans that lead to the financial crisis, ignored the public's wishes for offshore drilling, and voted for the government bailout that the public didn't want. Democrats are on the left side of the political spectrum that dictates an investment of trust and power in the government, which means we're going to get more of the same one-party legislation, big government, big spending, and little oversight that we've already had during the Bush Administration.

Government works best when there is a spread of power between the branches, forcing them to clash with each other constantly until the public overwhelmingly demands something that they're forced to agree on. This keeps them all in check--they don't do things for their party; they only do them for us. However, as I said, swing voters are nitwits, so the current financial news means they blame whichever party currently has the presidency. Thus, Obama and the Congress Democrats have shot up in the polls despite encouraging the very loans that caused the crisis and adjourning the Congress before the offshore drilling problem could be addressed. Hell, top Democrats ran Fannie Mae, and Barney Frank even blocked Bush's and McCain's warnings about Fannie Mae back in 2003! And I'm sure you all saw the news a while back that Obama was the biggest recipient of donations from those companies.

We are screwed. So do what I'm doing. Stay home and don't vote. Why contribute to another supermajority administration that's going to mess everything up? If there was a chance of a Democrat for president but a Republican house, or a Republican for president with a Democrat house, I'd show up. But we're not going to get that. We're getting a supermajority so big that the minority party won't even have enough seats to launch investigations when the inevitable administration scandals come up (as they always do for every President). Swing voters are going to reward the same people who have screwed us over by giving them a one-party government--a party that believes in bigger government and bigger spending. This is the same shit we hated about Bush. We're going to get an EVEN BIGGER government. So screw 'em. Stay home and have nothing to do with it.

I'm very disillusioned with the election and with the press in particular. I say let the media obsess over the debates--all they care about is who "gaffes" so they can have some goofy clip to run the rest of the week for higher ratings, and they're actually disappointed when a debate comes out as a draw. Let each party try to steal the election--for instance, like ACORN is doing by registering thousands of dead people. Let the uninformed nitwits show up on election day and contribute to our country's downfall. Reasonable people don't have a choice.

Just my political rant for the day. Interested in your thoughts, counterarguments, and so on.

George Carlin - I Don't Vote

Re:Why bother?

[Wiarumas]

So you are suggesting that the solution to having two poor candidates is to not participate and yet still deal with the repercussions? Hardly sounds useful to me - it sounds like a lazy way of going about a self fufilling prophecy. You know, even voting for a single topic (which I discourage) is even more useful than not voting at all. Or better yet, vote for a third party. At least you will get something out of it. Somebody is going to get elected and by being passive is not proving a point, changing anything, or even going to be noticed. Your ideaologies will just fall by the wayside in the same category of people who don't vote because of various reasons (too dumb, too oblivious, too uninterested, etc to care).

Re:Why bother?

[Bogtha]

Your vote doesn't count anyway. It's the "swing voters" who decide elections, the uninformed nitwits who don't even look at the policies of each candidate. They're the ones who re-elected Bush.

So do what I'm doing. Stay home and don't vote.

When Bush was re-elected, only about half the people eligible to vote bothered to do so, and Bush only got about half of those votes. Bush wasn't allowed to remain president by that 25% alone, he was also allowed to do so by the 50% that didn't vote, including yourself. As much as you complain about Bush, you are part of the problem, and by not voting, you endorse the next president, whoever it is.

Re:Why bother?

[bonch]

So you are suggesting that the solution to having two poor candidates is to not participate and yet still deal with the repercussions?

Yes. When you have two poor candidates--especially when one of them is high enough in the polls that it's likely they'll be the president and establish another one-party supermajority--you shouldn't bother participating. That way you can say you had nothing to do with it. You didn't find anything you liked in either candidate, so you rescinded your vote from the system. My vote is precious enough that if neither candidate meets my standards, neither gets it.

I don't see what you get out of voting for a third party other than a wasted trip. You may as well not vote at all since a third party will not win an election in America.

Re:Why bother?

[darkfire5252]

Phew. I almost wasted a lot of time reading that long comment. Good thing I noticed this part quickly:

We are screwed. So do what I'm doing. Stay home and don't vote.

Now I know I can safely just disregard you, because the moral is that if you don't vote then you don't have a say in the political process, formal or otherwise. You're not making a difference, you're not making a stand, and you're not sending a message. What you are doing is convincing politicians that they are indeed doing the right thing by trying to disenfranchise US citizens. If they piss you off and your response is "Hah! You may stomp on my rights and preferences, but I'll get you back by letting you do whatever you damn well please" then you are not just irrelevant; you are the problem.

Re:Why bother?

[Microlith]

Indeed. Don't vote. Just whine.

Let it get out of control. Let go of the steering wheel.

Be part of the problem. Don't vote.

(seriously, shit like this happens because over 50% of the US population DOES NOT VOTE. So shut the hell up, register, and vote.)

Re:Why bother?

[bonch]

I'm not the one putting these people into power. You are. You keep electing these assholes who increase the size and power of the government. We're very likely about to establish another one-party government. We just had one of those! The new one-party government will be controlled by the very same assholes who caused the mortgage crisis, ignored the public's demand for offshore drilling, and voted for a government bailout the public didn't want. The swing voters are rewarding these jerks with an increased majority and a liberal, inexperienced president who will give them no opposition because he believes Americans should "spread the wealth" (his words).

It's Bush 2.0. Bigger government, increased spending, and little oversight (the increase in seats means the minority party won't be able to oppose anything). The polls show who's going to win. Why drive out and cast a meaningless vote when the swing voters have decided for me?

Re:Why bother?

[darkfire5252]

Why drive out and cast a meaningless vote when the swing voters have decided for me?

Guess what? When you're trying to influence an election where the person with the majority of votes is the winner, removing one vote from the vote pool has the effect of giving the other votes more sway. You are literally giving the ignorant voters more say over the course of this nation because you don't want to 'reward' the candidate with your vote. Instead you'd rather reward the candidate by making other votes count more. If you're really pissed off, vote third-party. Will they win? Hell no. But, it will detract from the percentage of people who voted for party 1 or 2, and those percentages are what determines how much public funding third party candidates get to campaign with.

Grow some balls and stand for something. Don't rationalize your own apathy to me; you just enable the current system we have. I'm trying to actually change something.

Re:Why bother?

[Grishnakh]

I disagree completely. Don't stay home. Go out and vote, just don't vote for Obama or McCain. Vote for one of the third-party candidates. You have 4 leading choices: Nader, the Greens, Baldwin with the Constitution Party (my pick), or Barr with the Libertarian Party. Getting more people to vote third-party is the only way to break the hold on power that the two corrupt parties (D & R) have.

Remember, it wasn't that long ago that the people of Minnesota were dissatisfied with the D and R choices for governor, and instead elected Jesse Ventura in a surprise election.

If you don't vote, it's like you don't even exist. But if you vote for a third-party candidate, your vote will show up, and will make a big statement by not supporting a D or R.

Re:Why bother?

[Grishnakh]

If you're really pissed off, vote third-party. Will they win? Hell no. But, it will detract from the percentage of people who voted for party 1 or 2, and those percentages are what determines how much public funding third party candidates get to campaign with.

Grow some balls and stand for something. Don't rationalize your own apathy to me; you just enable the current system we have. I'm trying to actually change something.

I agree with this completely, and that's what I'm doing. I'm voting for Baldwin.

If you vote third-party, you can have a clear conscience that you voted for someone you support (at least a lot more than McSame or Nobama), and aren't contributing to the 2-party system. Then you can correctly claim that all the country's problems are the fault of all the voters who voted for McSame or Nobama, as you voted for a better candidate.

Re:Why bother?

[BarefootClown]

What about those of us who don't have any third parties, due to our obscenely-restrictive ballot access laws?

Yeah, I'm an Okie.

Re:Why bother?

[lennier]

"I'm voting for Baldwin."

Alec, Daniel, William, Stephen, or Adam?

Re:Why bother?

[bonch]

I do stand for something. That's why I'm staying home.

Third-party candidates will NEVER win. It's completely pointless to waste a vote on them just so they get some 0.001% percentage increase in funding that will never match the Republicans and Democrats.

Or you could...

[rhythmx]

go to the movie theater. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin has been showing the debates. There really is no better way to watch them than to have a burger and knock back pitcher of beer.

Re:Or you could...

[josh61980]

Is there a local drinking game to accompany this event? It just seems like something like this would be mandatory to make the debate more palatable.

Re:Or you could...

[ThanatosMinor]

As is the Parkway in Oakland. Also with beer.

Re:Or you could...

[kchrist]

We did that during the first debate. We had a separate list of "drink" phrases for Obama and McCain.

And yes, "My friends" was the first thing on the McCain list.

Moonlight

[tepples]

Will I be able to watch it without stupid Silverlight? It'd be nice to be able to watch from my Linux box :-(

What error message did Moonlight give, either when you built it from source to get the media codecs[1] or when you tried to run it?

[1] From the page: "These builds do not include media codecs (video or audio), for that, you must currently build Moonlight from source code."

Why Live?

[Skapare]

Are you casting your vote tomorrow?

Why Watch At All?

[mpapet]

The "debate" is an artifice constructed by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is run by both parties. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Presidential_Debates

In 1988, the League of Women Voters withdrew its sponsorship of the presidential debates after the George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis campaigns secretly agreed to a "memorandum of understanding" that would decide which candidates could participate in the debates, which individuals would be panelists (and therefore able to ask questions), and the height of the podiums. The League rejected the demands and released a statement saying that they were withdrawing support for the debates because "the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter.

It is a fraud. And still, people watch this theatrical event and act like it means something. No wonder this country is such a mess.

Re:Why Watch At All?

[Valdrax]

What's the better alternative that you propose?

And even if the current system stinks in your opinion, why is it better to hear no debate than to hear a structured one?

Re:Why Watch At All?

[Jon Abbott]

We need more variety, not less. Why is it that the Miss America contest has fifty contestants but the U.S. Presidential contest only focuses on two? Clearly money and mainstream political parties are in the way of a more equitable system.

Sports bars!

[fugue]

I think that many of the TV-overendowed sports bars around here (Boulder) will be showing the debate. Of course, this ties in nicely with my theory that Republicans view politics as a sport--forget about who is right or wrong, wise or foolish, as long as the home team wins. Raaaa. It also ties in nicely with the new breed of drinking games that is springing up around this event. Hey, we should call it the World Series!

Re:Sports bars!

[macbeth66]

Of course, this ties in nicely with my theory that Republicans view politics as a sport--forget about who is right or wrong, wise or foolish, as long as the home team wins. Raaaa

Sorry, we democrats are just as bad, if not worse, in that regard. I still can't figure out why the heck we put that idiot Gore or that vile panty-waste Kerry on the ticket. We just needed someone, anyone, and we could have knocked out Bush II. Then we almost put Clinton on the ticket. What were people thinking?

But, I do like the idea of sitting in a bar, drinking, eating bar food and yelling at the TV. I gotta find one in the neighborhood and cheer Obama on.

Re:Sports bars!

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had mod points - sir - they would be yours.

Re:Sports bars!

[Valdrax]

You know, I'm not a fan of (a) sports bars, (b) politics as a game, or frankly (c) Republicans, but I don't feel that that's a fair attack.

I mean, God forbid that people who like sports care enough about politics to preempt ESPN for information on one of the most important decisions they're likely to make this year.

Re:Sports bars!

[Jon Abbott]

As a fellow Boulderite and early Slashdot registrant, I must ask, where are these sports bars in Boulder you refer to? I know Harpos and Lazy Dog are sports bars, but I don't know of any others.

Re:Sports bars!

[fugue]

I believe I've also seen sports displayed all too prominently at (among others that elude me at the moment) Walnut Brewery, Old Chicago, BJ's, Connor O'Neill, possibly the Walrus (or several of that crowd), ... Me, I usually go to a Sun on account of no TV.

Re:Sports bars!

[Jon Abbott]

I see those places as sports bars in disguise. :^) I also have no TV, so I watch the debates on C-Span online. It works fairly well and I can always turn it off when the rhetoric becomes too abundant (as was the case with the VP debate and the second presidential debate).

Re:Sports bars!

[fugue]

The rhetoric will, I am sure, make people more, er, thirsty, as it were. Politics is the new Pretzels!

Re:Sports bars!

[Jon Abbott]

Now that you mention it, watching the debates did make my mouth dry... :^)

fox-branded version

[Anonymous Coward]

fox-branded version... does that mean they'll be digitally replacing Obama in the debate with a box of exceptionally dumb rocks?

C-SPAN

[internic]

I think there will also be a stream available from C-SPAN, which will probably be preferable to the abysmal journalism of Fox News one may be subjected to at the beginning or end. It looks like a local DC PBS affiliate is also offering a live webcast, but a) I'm not sure how much bandwidth they'll have and b) it looks like it's offered either as windows media video or through silverlight, so this may be tough if you're on Linux.

I think that, aside from questions of capacity, C-SPAN is probably the best option because you can get the debate relatively unfiltered. Looking at analysis can be useful, but do it after you've had some time to digest it and come to your own conclusions. Then getting another view can add some insights you missed. Most networks want to rush on with the "analysts" and interviews from spin alley to tell you what to think before you have a chance to consider it yourself. This can color your whole perception of an event, framing the terms in which you think about, in a way that has little to do with logic or the issues.

Now what seem really hard to find are audio podcasts of the debates. Often, when I miss a debate I just want to get an audio podcast to listen to while I'm going someplace or doing chores around the house, etc. I don't really need to see the debate, if anything that draws focus to irrelevant stuff and away from substantive issues. Unfortunately, these are hard to find, and in the past I've had to grab a video and then make the mp3 for myself.

Works for Me (TM)

[Anonymous Coward]

..or so it seems.

I don't know, I can watch Hulu videos, I'm using Flash 10 from the Canonical .deb on Adobe's site with Ubuntu 8.04.1

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[cicatrix1]

Worked fine for me in Ubuntu (32 bit) with FF3.

Hack the Debate = debate + twitter

[Mister Furious]

Current does a 'Hack the Debate' live mashup of the debates with users' tweets. Anyone can tweet with #current in the message & current puts as many as possible on-screen during the live debate broadcast. I haven't watched it live, yet, but saw some vid of it and it looks really cool.

http://current.com/topics/88834922_hack_the_debate

The Onion needs to change their headline

[Punto]

to Area man posts front page Slashdot story telling people he doesn't own a television.

New York Times Anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

The New York Times has had the feed online on their front page for all three debates so far (including vp). That's where I've watched them. It's presented in a flash player so it should be cross platform. It's not high def, but it's reliable as long as you've got an internet connection.

Just go to www.nytimes.com when the debate is set to start.

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[Tibor the Hun]

Mr. Obama? Hi! My name is Larry Bagina, and I'd like to talk to you about...

A great news story about the poster...

[Trailer Trash]

"For those of us that no longer have a television"

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28694

SSDD

[tuxgeek]

I'm with you. After years of hearing the same political blather year after year, I'll be doing something else than hearing a political debate.

November is the time to express our true feelings as to how the trolls of DC have been screwing over the country.

With that noted, I am not impressed with McSame's choice to take the low road of negative campaigning. This tact really pisses me off. I'm not retarded and I don't want to hear smear right now. I want to hear positive insight as to how he will restore the world from from the shit hole that the Bush Cartel have put us into.

The view from my stump: McSame has comfortably nestled himself in the corporate overlord pocket and will be Bush revisited - for 4 more years, at least. Palin, on the outside is pure window dressing, but on the inside she is an idiot (just listen to her speak off script), and personally, she scares the hell out of me. This is not someone we want in the nations capitol.

On the other side of the fence, we have Obama. While I have been disappointed with some of the legislation he has gone along with, I DO like the youth factor. Here we will have the benefit of a younger man with fresh ideas to salvage the national community and economy, and someone that has not yet been polluted with political graft and corruption like the neanderthals of DC, the likes of John McCain, Ted Stevens, etc, etc, etc.

Nuf said

Re:SSDD

[Creepy Crawler]

What exactly makes you think that Obama is any better?

His voting record is public record, and it does not bode well for him. His claims of no more tax for under 250K seem false based upon prior record.

McCain: Just the same as the last 8 years.
Obama: European Socialism taxes with less benefits than Europe.

Re:SSDD

[tuxgeek]

Voters have 2 viable choices this November. While voting for Mickey Mouse will do your heart good, doing so is just a waste of your time and you're better off just staying in the pub.

The world and economy we have today is the result of 12 years of total republican control. The second Clinton term in which he was made to run in circles dodging Newt's republican fireballs, and 8 years of dubya. The last 2 years of dubya still count as the republican minority has continued to maintain influence and policy over the submissive Dems.

The damage the Bush crime family have done is extensive. Don't expect miracles overnight. The debt will take years of taxes to pay down to a manageable level. And yes, I have seen Obama's tax proposals. His tax breaks are mostly going to incomes less than $250M. Also, while you are liberally throwing around catchy sound bytes of "European Socialism", what the fuck do you consider Bush's trillion $ bailout of his banker buddies and family members that skimmed 10 billion in bonus's to themselves just before filing for bankruptcy?

Weighing all factors, the future is indeed grim. But I prefer to hold out for hope that one day we will elect some individual that is a smart person, and willing to work for the country and not for Haliburton's and Exxon's profit margins.

I have to hold out for hope, I'm not quite ready for the prospect of Mad Max and cannibalism.

Re:SSDD

[Creepy Crawler]

---Voters have 2 viable choices this November. While voting for Mickey Mouse will do your heart good, doing so is just a waste of your time and you're better off just staying in the pub.

You are indeed correct saying that there are 2 viable choices, but they both will do the country worse. I have no preconceived notions that one candidate is somehow better than another. They both suck.. just in different ways.

---The world and economy we have today is the result of 12 years of total republican control. The second Clinton term in which he was made to run in circles dodging Newt's republican fireballs, and 8 years of dubya. The last 2 years of dubya still count as the republican minority has continued to maintain influence and policy over the submissive Dems.

IIRC, the R's did not have a supermajority, and therefore Clinton could have vetoed every bill the R's pass... as long as the D's dont waver.

In the real world, the R's and D's have similar goals: make government bigger and spend more money. They just happen to differ on a few choice issues.

---The damage the Bush crime family have done is extensive. Don't expect miracles overnight. The debt will take years of taxes to pay down to a manageable level. And yes, I have seen Obama's tax proposals. His tax breaks are mostly going to incomes less than $250M. Also, while you are liberally throwing around catchy sound bytes of "European Socialism", what the fuck do you consider Bush's trillion $ bailout of his banker buddies and family members that skimmed 10 billion in bonus's to themselves just before filing for bankruptcy?

I have no issue with European Socialism. However, people need to know what it will do to taxes, and what its implications to our economy and our businesses and our citizens. Many dont realize that many European nations spend 1/4 of their GDP on healthcare per year.

I'm also up for using a interesting law in our constitution against these idiot bankers: Eminent Domain. They want us to bail them out. Well... Why not take control of them if they are THAT critical to our infrastructure?

And lastly... Bush Crime Family? Sheesh. Lose the loaded language. Last I recall, the recent president who was founded of crimes and impeached (over Perjury, a high crime) was Clinton. I care not for his sexual preference, but what would happen if YOU were to lie to a judge in a high court? Nothing good, I presume.

---Weighing all factors, the future is indeed grim. But I prefer to hold out for hope that one day we will elect some individual that is a smart person, and willing to work for the country and not for Haliburton's and Exxon's profit margins.

Damn straight it's grim. I'm 26 years old, facing loan cutbacks, paying in Social Security and will likely see nothing of it, and paying excessive taxes without the benefit that our European brethren. I pay so damn much in taxes... gas taxes, AMT, phone taxes, taxes on taxes, taxes on tax returns.. How much do WE actually pay in taxes, and what do we get back from it?

---I have to hold out for hope, I'm not quite ready for the prospect of Mad Max and cannibalism.

Well.. the way McCain is talking about Russia and Iran, it's almost as if he's already preparing to shift troops to Georgia and/or Iran. Yum... Draft. I dont know of any other ways that they can raise troop levels.

Re:SSDD

[clone53421]

You are indeed correct saying that there are 2 viable choices, but they both will do the country worse. I have no preconceived notions that one candidate is somehow better than another. They both suck.. just in different ways.

Whoosh!

Voters have 2 viable choices this November. While voting for Mickey Mouse will do your heart good, doing so is just a waste of your time and you're better off just staying in the pub.

But then I was all like

[Jimmy Avalanche]

I fully expect several screencaps of the candidates emerging post-debate, displaying happy/sad expressions to be captioned hilariously. That's the sole reason it's streamed online, right?

www.nytimes.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Live stream, works on Linux.

CSPAN you insenstive clod...

[gorehog]

Seriously, CSPAN has been doing live feeds of debates and other political events for years now. As far as I know CSPAN is the best example of the cable industry providing a public service to the internet. And YES I watched the last two debates over CSPAN's live streams.

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[Gallon of Fuel]

I don't know that you can necessarily make the jump between having Linux run their intranet server and the political candidate being a steward to open source in government. I know the /. community as a whole think's Mr. Obama is the FSM incarnate, but come on now.

how to get CNN live on linux

[wwwrench]

You can get it to work: just use VLC media player
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
and open the video stream:
File->Open Network Stream
check HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/MSS and put in the url http://www.cnn.com/video/live/cnnlive_1.asx

then watch and try not to vomit!

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[fluffman86]

I haven't found a single decent US-based company for watching the debates live. The BBC, on the other hand, is awesome and provides an auto-updating live blog (using javascript) and a purely flash-based live video feed. They don't even have branding or ads on the actual feed.

Hulu = nogo

[drix]

I can't think of a better use for streaming the presidential debates online than enabling all us expats who can't see it live on our local stations. Which is why I found it really annoying when I logged on to Hulu for debate #2 that I got a big fat denial message stating they can only serve content to people in the US. Thankfully, the BBC had it live and uninterrupted.

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I would love to believe that, I can't help but feel a tad doubtful.

See it FIRST on Hulu

[Control-Z]

Friend of mine told me that Hulu.com was about 2 seconds ahead of the network feed. Wonder if that's just SOP for a live program, I can't imagine there will be any cussing in the debates. :/

Alternates - CSPAN & KFI

[HappyDrgn]

I'm surprised when these come around and people ask me where to watch debates online. CSPAN always covers these debates commercial free at http://www.c-span.org/, IT's the same broadcast you'd find on their Cable TV counterpart. You cal also watch live senate floor debates online. Additionally, local (so cal) radio station 640AM also plays these live commercial free over the air and online www.am640.com for those too bandwidth limited for video.

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[Jeff Hornby]

You do understand that the chance of the president getting involved in the choice of what operating system to use in the white house is about as likely as the CEO of IBM getting involved in the choice of what brand of toilet paper to use in their office in Bangalore, don't you?

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my! Yes, operating system choice is probably my biggest concern in this election as well.

It's not like we have any wars or global economic crises going on right now or anything.

For Everyone's Information

[ThanatosMinor]

The countdown clock on Hofstra University's website is incorrect if your time is not EDT. Mine is counting down to 9pm Pacific. It seems to use the local time on the computer that's viewing it, and if I change my clock, the countdown changes. So just be sure that you've got the right time if you want to watch it.

Aljazeera English via Livestation.com

[Visual Echo]

Using the viewer from Livestation.com , I've been watching the debates on Aljazeera (English). It works perfectly on my Ubuntu 8 (64-bit) installation.

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[cashman73]

MSNBC also will have a live stream. I suspect Fox News will, too, for those with a more conservative leaning,...

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[IndustrialComplex]

Barack Obama supports Linux. I did some freelance work for his North Carolina campaign headquarters, settting up a gentoo box for use as their intranet server. I met BO and talked about linux and modernizing the Federal Government, access to information, etc. He'll probably be a very linux-friendly administration. It may not be year of the linux desktop yet, but it will be year of the linux whitehouse.

It would just be silly for the President to get involved beyond the selection of someone who isn't beholden to a particular company to handle the IT affairs of the White House. Could you imagine what kind of fuss the President would kick up if he demanded that the FBI use a particular brand of calculator?

Anyway, WHCA already knows what OSes it is going to use years in advance.

Drinking game

[Jaysyn]

One shot for every time McCain says "My Friends"

One shot for every time Obama says "Hope"

One shot for every time they go over the allotted time for a question.

One shot for every time they completely avoid the question.

Re:Drinking game

[onkelonkel]

Oh sure, great rules, we'll all be flat on our asses in about 20 minutes.

Re:Drinking game

[hypergreatthing]

One shot for every time McCain says "My Friends"

One shot for every time Obama says "Hope"

One shot for every time they go over the allotted time for a question.

One shot for every time they completely avoid the question.

Instead of a drinking game, you mean a straight way to the emergency room for detox.

Re:Drinking game

[Nightspirit]

You would die. That's like a shot every 30 seconds.

Re:Drinking game

[Jaysyn]

That very well could be an improvement over the next 4 years.

Re:Drinking game

[kchrist]

We did that the first time around, with a list of key phrases for each candidate.

Full Screen - Live Streaming - MSN.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea yea, don't be scared, I know MSN.com isn't exactly a tech hot spot... but...

I've been watching all of the debates live though MSN.com. Great quality, no bandwidth problems, great full screen mode when hooking my laptop up to the TV.

At first I was skeptical of quality and performance and was afraid they would try to interject ads and what not. But it ended up being a great trouble free way to watch it.

You will find a "Watch Now" link on the MSN home page right around the time the debates start.

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[Xtravar]

Actually, my company's founder/CEO often makes those types of decisions. A good leader's job is to instill hope and empower appropriate people to make decisions. That leaves the leader to do other things... like interior decorating, forming company vision, etc.

That said, choosing a computing platform is not a trivial matter (like toilet paper), and a good leader with no technical expertise would ideally empower someone with technical expertise to make the decision. Even with my bitter outlook about this election, I have to agree that Obama is better at delegating those decisions than McCain is.

Fraught with peril

[Quiet_Desperation]

I tried that for the first debate and wound up accidentally seeing Babylon A.D.

Never again!!!

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[Shakrai]

Barack Obama supports Linux. I did some freelance work for his North Carolina campaign headquarters, settting up a gentoo box for use as their intranet server. I met BO and talked about linux and modernizing the Federal Government, access to information, etc.

You got a chance to directly talk to a major party presidential candidate and you used it to talk about Linux? I don't know if I should shake your hand or slap you across the face.

Why ACORN "scan" registrations?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there is the detail that ACORN in Minnesota handed in some registrations late because of a problem with their scanner. That's a technical issue. What isn't technical is why ACORN needs to "scan" the registrations which they process. Why does ACORN need a copy, rather than just giving them to the authorities who process the registrations?

Re:Why ACORN "scan" registrations?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, why do they do that? Perhaps you should go and find out? Maybe that way there would be no need to throw useless question out in the air?

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[RanCossack]

You do understand that the chance of the president getting involved in the choice of what operating system to use in the white house is about as likely as the CEO of IBM getting involved in the choice of what brand of toilet paper to use in their office in Bangalore, don't you?

So now that Palmisano chose bounty, what are the chances of both? :)

Recorded?

[Xenographic]

Personally, I look for the transcript. It's a LOT smaller and I can read a lot faster than they can talk.

And frankly, you don't miss anything worthwhile. Who wants to see McCain on a green screen again?

(Yes, I know that was at a speech, not at one of the debates.)

Re:Recorded?

[Phroggy]

I like to see what other people are going to be making fun of, and that sometimes gets lost in transcription. For example, McCain shuffling aimlessly around the stage toward the end of debate #2.

Re:Recorded?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like green, you insensitive clod!

Re:Recorded?

[mi]

For example, McCain shuffling aimlessly around the stage toward the end of debate #2.

Is "shuffling aimlessly", what you are going to decide on?

Sorry, the important things are in the transcript — even if it takes a dedicated pundit to fish out the particularly striking idiocies.

"French kicked out Hezbollah," — said the supposed "foreign policy expert" — that's what I'm going to be making fun of, for sure...

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[Atzanteol]

Are you saying a political candidate agreed with you on the topics you discussed with him? Seriously? OMG! That *never* happens. Especially not in an election year to a supporter!

</sarcasm>

I bet you felt all warm and fuzzy about it later too...

Perhaps, but ACORN is following the law.

[Xenographic]

Well, we're still missing some of the ACORN story. For one thing, the problem is because they pay people per registration. So some people like to add a bunch of phony registrations to get paid more.

ACORN knows this, so they look for it and fire those people. They also separate the probably fraudulent registrations. But they are required by law to give ALL of the registrations to the elections officials, so they also include a note saying, "These are probably fraudulent, please check. And here are the details of the guy who came up with these probably fraudulent registrations so you can prosecute them."

They've done this for a long time now. Remember that scandal over the illegal firing of US Attorneys? That was because they refused to prosecute ACORN for this years ago because they did not believe that they were doing anything illegal. But Bush's people fired all the people who said it was legal and stacked the deck with hardcore Republicans. So now they're prosecuting.

Even though ACORN is being defrauded by bad workers. Even though ACORN is obeying the law. Even though ACORN verifies the registrations and separates the bad ones in spite of having no legal obligation to do so.

This is just politically motivated nonsense. Yes, there will probably be convictions, but they'll be of people ACORN turned in and recommended for prosecution.

Re:Perhaps, but ACORN is following the law.

[Uberbah]

For one thing, the problem is because they pay people per registration.

Not exactly. They paid people by the hour, yet their employees had a quota for the number of registrations they would have to collect. It would probably be better if they were just paid by the hour and had close supervision.

Obligatory

[Phroggy]

The Onion

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

ACORN knows who they registered

[Anonymous Coward]

Having bogus registrations is mainly benign. They are unlikely to be used for several reasons. One is that you have to remember the name you used, ...

Well, ACORN is keeping scanned copies of the registrations which they are involved in...

Alternative Debate Proposal

[mpapet]

why is it better to hear no debate

Because the average voter may just as well listen to an hours worth of candidate commercials. That's what they are getting. They are making decisions based on commercials. That's a **bad** decision making model. This group lays the problem out nicely. http://www.opendebates.org/theissue/

Some slightly modified version of the following would be better. Let's get the candidates campaign people on stage too. They'll end up in powerful positions within the Administration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_forum_debate

Sadly, I'm no troll.

more questions to ask

[bogaboga]

Why didn't the folks at MythTV use the free ".ogv for Ogg Video" format? It creates smaller files and the quality is quite good. I know because I use it myself.

Re:more questions to ask

[Chaos Incarnate]

But can it encode in real-time (or faster)? Especially on the older hardware likely to be found in a MythTV box?

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent was clearly joking, you humorless, defensive mods.

One suggestion

[ZPWeeks]

Drink every time McCain says, "My friends..." WARNING: not for lightweights. Might be a good idea to have a paramedic on hand, too.

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[atomic777]

Normally I would share your cynical perspective, but things are quite different now. The US federal deficit is going into the stratosphere, and for Obama it would be an easy Win(tm) to bash the corporate greed of Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and go for a large scale push towards OSS software in government. Microsoft certainly has a lot of influence, but not more than the defense contractors that will be fighting to maintain their share of a rapidly shrinking budget pie.

Indeed, a silver lining of the economic crisis may be a huge amount of cost-cutting by large institutions and governments in the western world that leads to greater adoption of OSS.

CNN - very cool player with "karaoke " transcripts

[The Qube]

CNN at least has a very cool looking player where you can click on a word in the transcript and it takes you to that exact point in the video. They are calling it the "video transcript"

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[keithjr]

Consider that the current administration lost a ton of emails due to crappy closed proprietary software and shoddy data retention policies. Having somebody at the top who believes in sensible computing is actually rather important. I'm not saying he'll be pushing Ubuntu onto the office desktops, but the basic philosophy is very refreshing.

I no longer own a TV, cause I'm better than you.

[zbend]

I hate smug douches who brag about not watching or not even owning a TV, just because 90% of a medium is crap doesn't mean you throw it out, 90% of every medium is crap. TV just got a bad rap. It may be hard to believe with the giant shadow of reality TV blocking out the sun, but there are great TV shows. Dexter, Mad Men, Colbert, you get the idea.

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[Jeff Hornby]

From reading the article you cited, the reason for the lost e-mails had nothing to do with the choice of software and everything to do with boneheaded consultants moving thousands of files manually instead of automating the process to prevent human error.

That's assuming that you believe the story that Ars is quoting.

I think it's more likely that the white house deleted all those emails and then came up with a convenient excuse as to why they were gone because they didn't want anybody to examine the true record of what was heppening at the time.

Closed caption?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know a way to stream it with closed captioning?

Re:I no longer own a TV, cause I'm better than you

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, yeah? Well I hate people who use the phrase "smug douches". It's so Philly-esque.

Re:Linux? No CNN.

[Anonymous Coward]

toilet paper? in Bangalore? try leaves and a hole in the ground.

Actually...

[raehl]

...he chose Charmin. They even have to ship it over there because the stuff produced in Asia isn't as good.

Still gets kinda stale on the way over though.

See Libertarian debate

[Anonymous Coward]

http://blog.bobbarr2008.com/2008/10/15/bob-barr-counter-debate/

There are some 6 people on the Presidential ballot in California, yet only 2 people at the debates.

And the evidence for this is???

[jotaeleemeese]

Oh wait, no, rumours and unsubstantiated second hand accounts of something said should be enough for anybody to take your comment at face value....

Oh yeah, and to be moderated Insightful.

Jeeeez....

USian is not derogatory

[jotaeleemeese]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USian

It is an attempt to find an unambiguous term instead of keep using the one hijacked by English speaking countries (this has a very political objective, it is not casual that USians chose to call themselves, incorrectly, Americans, it has to do with imperial spheres of influence and exactly how big the US hoped to be in the long term).

If you want a derogatory term Yankee or gringo would be better suited.

Re:USian is not derogatory

[clone53421]

USians chose to call themselves, incorrectly, Americans

Perhaps you should read your own source better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USian

The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an American.

Payday Loan Advocate for politics.slashdot.org

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in 2006, both Presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, gave their support to the bill that took away a select groupâ(TM)s access to no fax payday loans. The bill, which went into effect in October 2007, capped interest rates that payday loan stores could charge military personnel at 36 percent. This action was based off the increasing number of American soldiers in the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force, National Guard, and other branches, who had loans taken out under their names without their knowledge, which sometimes led to becoming victims to identity theft. Other times, their spouses take out loans under their names without their consent. Despite the well-beings of the greater number of American citizens who are occasionally in need of financial help, they passed this bill in hopes to prevent further financial mishaps based on this reasoning. Now, Barack Obama has made another declaration to broaden this bill to affect every single one of us. With our financial freedom at stake, think about this before casting your vote.

Post Courtesy of Personal Money Store
Professional Blogging Team
Feed Back: 1-866-641-3406
Home: http://personalmoneystore.com/NoFaxPaydayLoans.html
Blog: http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/

McCain is Dangerous-My Family is a DIRECT TARGET

[Jim_97]

McCain Northwest Air Campaign Ties Exposed In Airline Profiling Attack Murder Attempts Ongoing PLEASE SPREAD!! ***>>http://McCainATTACKS.BLOGSPOT.COMhttp://mccainattacks.blogspot.com/ Presidential candidate John McCain I have now discovered, is deeply connected to the persecution ongoing against my mother and I in the wake of the Jan 18/06 Minneapolis Northwest Airlines profiling attack upon my mother and I (EVIDENCE BELOW), via his close association with Northwest Airlines, the official airline of his political campaign and the fact that his lawyers have Northwest Airlines as one of their top two primary clients!!- a detail which I have just this second uncovered, the most profound aspect, bar none of our ordeal. Our website: http://mccainattacks.blogspot.com/ Northwest Airlines Profiling attack, Northwest Air a McCain campaign affiliate and sponsor and amongst the top 2 clients of the McCain legal counsel. (proof and links below), now ongoing kidnapping attempts in Canada via Canadian police acting on behalf of U.S. to silence our online voice http://aaronjamesstory-importantlinks.blogspot.com/ ***>>THE EVIDENCE OF MCCAIN NORTHWEST AIRLINES TIES: ***--->>>Northwest Airlines is primary supporter of McCain re airlines CEO Douglass Steeland is very pro McCain and primary airlines supporter of his campaign complete with magazine photos and coverage in World Traveler magazine http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/northwest-airlines-supporting.php ARTICLE McCain Supporting Northwest Airlines: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/northwest-airlines-supporting.php "1) If you've taken a flight on Northwest Airlines in August you may have noticed the full cover of their in-flight magazine, World Traveler, greets you with the trio of Norm Coleman, John McCain, and Tim Pawlenty with the headline "The Republican's Are Coming!" The full-length photo identifies "Presidential candidate John McCain is flanked by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty." Meanwhile Barack Obama gets a less than two inch inset headshot photo which fails to mention that he is a senator, also a Presidential candidate, oh, yeah, and that his name is Barack Obama. 2) Then there's the message from NWA President & CEO Doug Streland which reminds us that his airline is the official airline of the Republican convention. ... 3) Inside the magazine, the splashy feature article on the Republican convention includes the cover photo of the three men again along with brief descriptions of them, including "fun facts." ***McCain's lawyers amongst the 133 lobbyists working for McCain have Northwest Airlines as their primary clients!!!http://mccainsource.com/corruption?id=0006 Firm / Employer Campaign Role Lawyers for McCain Select List of Clients Northwest Airlines Union Telephone U.S. Chamber of Commerce Source JohnMcCain.com Corporate interests are at play here, and McCain's racially bigoted campaign strategy (Palan labeling Obama a consorter with terrorists and their supporters shouting "lynch him, kill him etc) is consistent with the profiling mandate of Northwest Airlines and their 6000 CD release to the FBI developing the profiling system (CAPS-Computer assisted profiling system) targeting U.S. civilians. Treading on McCainâ(TM)s Corporate interests: Penalty: Attempts on Our lives: Northwest Was in Bankruptcy Protection, Now in Delicate Merger with Delta Airlines-McCain does not want upset in the balance of status quo Moreover, at the time of the attack, Northwest Air was in bankruptcy protection and did not want a potential civil suit action- currently they are in a delicate negotiation of merger with Delta Airlines that is hanging in the bala